


Judgement

by vibidi



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Baby's First Fanfic, Bastion Beeps a Boop, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends, Every Bot In This Fic Is a Certified Pure and Beautiful Bean, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Omnic Headcanons, Shambali Headcanons, Slow Burn, Torbjörn Has a Weird Way of Expressing Affection, Trust Issues, Zenyatta Has No Zen, but in a platonic sense, on hiatus but NOT abandoned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-07-24 13:58:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7511021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vibidi/pseuds/vibidi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the reformation of Overwatch comes new members, but not all of them find it easy to get along. It will take time and patience for Zenyatta to build relationships with those who oppose his very existence, but he's determined to show them he can be trusted.</p><p>Alt title: Maybe the Iris Was the Friends We Made Along the Way</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Recall

**Author's Note:**

> Man this is my first real foray into non-academic writing in... a few years, to be honest. Probably going to be pretty rusty for the first few chapters but hopefully I get back into the swing of it soon. 
> 
> This isn't really a ship fic- its main focus is to examine how relationships build over time between members of Overwatch whose views/existence are at odds, most notably the omnics and those that don't trust them. There may be other relationships examined as well, but they won't be the focus. 
> 
> Might not be able to avoid slipping Genyatta moments in here and there because, well, OTP.

"The slopes are steeper than I remember," Genji reminisced. "I often came here to reflect on my dual existence as human and machine when I was younger, but too often it ended in childish sulking."

The wind murmured through the brush around them as they descended. Two hundred feet below lay the airstrip of Watchpoint: Gibraltar. For the average hiker, the climb downward was perilous verging on foolhardy. But Genji and his companion were not hikers.

“Then our arrival heralds new opportunities for introspection amongst nature,” Zenyatta replied contentedly. It was indeed a beautiful area: the light ocean breeze tickled his sensory nodes and the moon lit the picturesque slope in silver and blue. “That presumes there will be time for relaxation at all, however. Have you spoken to Agent Winston again since he contacted you?”

“No,” Genji admitted, picking his way easily through the terrain even while his sights were trained on their destination below. “I thought about it, but unless he has changed, Winston was always better speaking in person. He does not have a way with video calls.”

His dry tone was not lost on Zenyatta, who chuckled in return. “Very well. I trust the judgement that led you to favour a swift return.”

Genji suspected Zenyatta had reservations about the recall. They had been in Osaka dealing with the fallout of an anti-Omnic protest turned violent, hoping to sow sentiments of peace and understanding in ground razed by hatred and violence. Twelve omnics murdered in the last week after the riots, and directly following Mondatta’s assassination in King’s Row no less. Responding to the recall pulled them from their peacekeeping, and fraternizing with an illegal organization put them in yet another line of fire from the many forces working against them.

Concern swelled in his chest as he glanced back at his mentor. It was a frightening time to be an omnic, and Genji knew better than to fool himself into thinking it wasn’t affecting Zenyatta. He would compartmentalize his gnawing worry, save it for a quiet moment when he could process it fully. But until that time came, even a tranquil monk could experience disquiet. 

So Genji talked. He regaled his master-- his best friend-- with tales of Ovewatch’s golden age, of the heroic agents he would be sure to meet in the coming days. From then on, time passed quickly as the sun peaked over the blue horizon and bathed their destination in a halo of gold and rose.

-

It was easy to spot Winston as they arrived. He exited the hangar just as they set foot on the airstrip, and Genji jogged to greet him, barely containing his overflowing enthusiasm. Zenyatta kept his distance, giving them time to get properly reacquainted, though he made sure to stay in earshot in case he was addressed.

“We came as soon as we could. I hope it was alright that we arrived on foot. I thought it would be the best way to get into the watchpoint unnoticed,” Genji explained. Indeed, he had picked up a few leaves and twigs during their downhill trek. With splinters wedged into the soft plates between his armour, he rather looked as though he had just emerged from a bird’s nest, Zenyatta reflected bemusedly. It would no doubt prove uncomfortable when the excitement abated.

Winston nodded appreciatively. “That’s more than alright. I’ve noticed a few more helicopters in the area than usual, and it’s only been three days. Thanks for taking the time to arrive subtly. But how have you been, Genji? You have to tell me what you’ve been up to all this time, and who you brought along. Why don’t we walk?”

As they began to stroll down the airstrip towards Winston’s lab, Zenyatta took his time observing the surroundings. This was to be his home for the foreseeable future, after all. Supplies were strewn about, but from what Genji had told him of the watchpoint’s resident scientist, he suspected it was organized chaos. Even to a newcomer, it seemed navigable enough. Blue tarps covered equipment that had lain still for years, but here and there machinery, charts, and electronics were uncovered and laid bare in the open. The facility, he thought, was stirring like a bear waking from a long slumber. 

He turned his attention to Genji. The cyborg moved with telling vigor, making wide, sweeping gestures as he spoke with Winston. While Zenyatta maintained some reservations about becoming a part of the new Overwatch, his heart warmed for his pupil. A homecoming could be a wonderful thing. 

Shouting from behind diverted his attention. He spun to see a small man charging at him. For a split second, he relived his first encounter with a wolverine years ago. 

“Three bloody days and someone sends an omnic to stick its cold metal digits in our business!” the man roared. 

Zenyatta retreated, equal parts curious and perturbed. He had expected some opposition, but not so soon. Or so heated. “I assure you-”

“Oh, the machine can talk! They make ‘em real fancy these days, but it’ll still stab you right in the back, Winston, mark my-”

“Torbjörn.” A calm voice split the tension like a bullet. Had the sun grown hotter, or were his internal fans failing? Zenyatta nevertheless felt a rush of embarrassed heat as Genji stalked in front of him, blocking the angry man from coming closer. 

He raised a cautious hand. “My student, I can handle my own-”

“This _machine_ ,” Genji hissed, his voice rising in volume, “is Tekhartha Zenyatta, member of the Shambali and honoured guest of the new Overwatch. He is my mentor and my guest, and you will speak respectfully toward him. _Am I clear?_ ”

The man, Torbjörn, eyed him for a long few seconds. Zenyatta saw many emotions flash through his eyes, too many to count but the essence of his reaction was clear: he would keep the peace but his sentiment was unchanged. 

“Well, good to see you, Shimada, not accountin’ for your company,” he finally muttered, ambling over to Genji and Winston. As he passed, Zenyatta could feel the disgust rolling off him, an impenetrable barrier of distrust and hatred. “Let’s go, then.”

He couldn’t help but feel as though he was being sized up like a particularly useful piece of scrap metal- and wondered suddenly if he should worry for his safety. 

But he quickly dismissed the feeling, letting it slip by and dissipate. This was Overwatch, not a gang of anti-omnic criminals.

The delicate hues of dawn had faded to clear blue skies by the time they arrived at the barracks. “I converted a few of the rooms to storage,” Winston admitted sheepishly. “Lots of projects on the backburner. But I’ve been cleaning them out and there’s space for the both of you if you share a room for the time being.”

“That is satisfactory,” Zenyatta said, and hoped offhandedly that Torbjörn wouldn’t appear in the middle of the night with a hammer and a screwdriver. That would make for an uncomfortable situation.

As they entered the building and made their way down a dusty, hazily lit hallway to the cleared-out rooms, Winston continued, “I know what Genji’s used to, but will you have any, you know, special needs? Forgive my ignorance- we didn’t have a lot of omnic members in the original Overwatch.”

Zenyatta nodded. “I understand, my friend. Do not worry on my behalf; I have become quite used to improvising any necessary arrangements during my travels.”

This seemed to satisfy Winston, who adjusted his glasses and led them to a series of adjacent hallways with four rooms on each side. Most of the halls were cluttered with cardboard boxes, plastic storage containers, and long-forgotten mementos from a bygone age. But three were impressively pristine. Winston had been busy in the past few days.

Zenyatta would have had an easier time surveying his surroundings if he did not have to feel Torbjörn’s glare burning a molten hole in his back. He might not have felt any real sense of danger, but it was discomfiting nevertheless.

As if sensing his unease, Genji spoke up. “Can we share my old room, sensei? I think I left some belongings there. I would like to go through them to see if anything may be of use.”

It was clear to the monk that his student was propelled by nostalgia more than pragmatism, but that was easily forgiven. For his part, he was curious about what a window into Genji’s past might reveal, though he also feared the consequences of revisiting such a conflicted time in his life. 

As he watched Genji, the eager incline of his neck and the relaxed curve of his back, he decided ghosts from the past would be unlikely to rattle the foundation of self-confidence and understanding he he had watched his student develop over their years together. “Yes, I believe that is a sound arrangement.”

Always polite, Genji bowed his head and thanked him. There was no need to move in, as they had brought hardly any belongings, so instead they accompanied Winston and Torbjörn to the adjoining mess hall, where Winston informed them he would be making a quick speech at noon for the members assembled thus far. They were free to explore until then, he added, but it would be good for Zenyatta to be there so he could introduce himself to other Overwatch agents.

With that said, the impromptu leader of the new Overwatch left to continue renovating the living quarters, leaving Zenyatta alone with Genji and Torbjörn. If he had noticed the remaining tension, he had chosen to avoid it. 

It did not take any mystical ability for Zenyatta to feel the anger still emanating from the man, but there was no sense in rushing reconciliation when it risked widening the antagonistic chasm between omnic and human. Though Torbjörn’s presence continued to make him uncomfortable, patience was to be his greatest ally in building any sort of constructive relationship with him. 

Zenyatta hummed thoughtfully. He hoped to learn more about Genji’s old teammates, Torbjörn included, but finding a conversation topic that would keep the man pacified would take a delicate sort of tact.

Sadly, Genji’s grasp of diplomacy was sorely wanting when he was aggravated. “You _will_ get along,” he told Torbjörn thickly. “It may have been years, but I should hope you still have a little faith in my ability to reason-”

“Never did, Shimada,” Torbjörn sighed with open, exasperated hands. “You were a real loose wire. Who’m I to say you got better? Especially in the company of an omnic that doesn’t know its place?”

Genji took a menacing step forward, and Zenyatta could almost feel his wiring frost over. Under his tutelage the cyborg had blossomed, shedding layers of surliness and self-loathing to reveal a keen sense of integrity and honour, but this had also come with an overprotectiveness for his master that was sometimes misplaced. 

Ultimately, however, he had to trust his better judgement and assume that Genji’s missteps would not cause irreparable or long-lasting harm to any of them, and that forgivable social blunders might become opportunities for later learning. He kept his silence.

Torbjörn held his ground, crossing his arms, his critical hazel eyes nearly masked by his bushy brows. “You got somethin’ to say, or are you just going to stand there?”

“It should not surprise me that a bitter old man hates change,” Genji finally scoffed. 

Zenyatta resisted the urge to put his palm to his face. Perhaps he had underestimated the angry flames licking at his student’s clear thinking. “Genji,” he asserted pointedly, “I suspect your friend Winston would appreciate assistance with his remodeling efforts.”

This gave the cyborg pause. He looked slowly from Zenyatta to Torbjörn, and then back to Zenyatta. “Master, I trust in your judgement…”

“But?” Zenyatta continued, opening his palm in a ‘go on’ gesture. He took no measures to prevent the undercurrent of amusement in his voice. “If you believe I have erred in my evaluation of our situation, please inform me. I am eager to know of my blunder.”

Genji deflated, and Zenyatta knew he would be blushing bright with chagrin under that mask, but before he or Torbjörn had a chance to say another word, a very excited new voice shattered the tension with an explosion of pure jubilance.

“Genji!” A young woman appeared suddenly next to the ninja, tackling him in a hug that nearly brought both of them to the floor, and Zenyatta wondered if his visual processors had glitched. 

The agitation in Genji’s posture vanished as he returned the embrace whole-heartedly. “Lena!”

It dawned on Zenyatta that this must be the Tracer he had heard about on numerous occasions. Genji was fond of her: she had been a light of optimism during the dark days of his recovery, and had pulled him many times from his gloom with her joviality and charisma. 

“Who’s this, love?” Tracer pulled away from Genji only to flicker over to Zenyatta, standing on her heels and giving him a cheeky salute. “New recruit? Or just a- oh, my!” 

She took in his attire; ragged though it might be, it made his status clear. “Goodness, you’re a member of the Shambali! It’s an honour, er… uh…”

“Tekhartha Zenyatta,” he replied warmly. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. You must be Lena Oxton. Genji has spoken fondly of you.”

Tracer chuckled sheepishly, a bright chirrup that seemed to illuminate the entire mess hall. “Oh Genji, you didn’t say anything too embarrassing, I hope!”

Then, with the unpredictable swiftness of a hummingbird zipping between flowers, she was on to another topic. “But you’ve got to come see Jesse! He just got here and oh, he is suffering from positively dreadful jet lag.You didn’t hear it from me, but he’s a riot when he’s so grumpy! And Reinhardt and Dr. Ziegler are set to arrive tomorrow! We have to clear out rooms for them! Come! Come on!”

With Tracer grabbing his arm and dragging him away, Genji didn’t have time to protest. He threw a worried glance over his shoulder as he departed, but Zenyatta waved him away calmly. It would be good for him to reacquaint himself with the other returning agents of Overwatch. As for spending time alone with Torbjörn, he doubted there was much progress to be made in a day, but as he glanced at the man from the corner of his visual sensors, he hoped they might at least find some form of common ground.

There was silence for a moment. Arid sunlight streamed in from the numerous windows, illuminating years of dust on the tables and seats. Torbjörn grunted and turned to leave.

“I do not expect you to trust me,” Zenyatta finally offered. 

Torbjörn slowed, but kept heading towards the exit to their right. “Hm. Smart bot. That it?”

“Not quite,” Zenyatta admitted, earning him a knowing glare from the Swede. He continued nevertheless. “If we are to work together, we need to establish some sort of truce, or any animosity between us could harm the entire team’s morale.”

Another grunt, this one less dismissive and more considering. 

“I will make a marked effort not to bother you on your free time,” Zenyatta said, “but we must work together during any future drills or missions regardless of our feelings. I will maintain an impartial and professional relationship with you. In turn, I ask that you treat me with the same respect you show your human peers. Does this sound fair to you?”

Torbjörn let out a tired harrumph and shifted his weight uneasily. “Well, so be it, then,” he muttered, avoiding eye contact. “Since it doesn’t look like I have much choice in the matter.”

This time Zenyatta let him leave. It would still be disquieting to work in close quarters with a man who thought him more a tool than a sentient being. But it was, the monk reflected solemnly, the everyday reality for many of his kind.

Too many.


	2. Discord

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just as Zenyatta begins acclimatizing to life at Gibraltar, a plea for help stirs disquiet and rouses a call to action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a "get business done and set things up" chapter so please bear with me! Not much interaction between Zen and Torb but there's some other stuff going on if you care to read between the lines, and I hope it's enough to tide people over until I'm done with chapter three owo
> 
> Thanks for all the kudos and lovely comments!!!! It's so much more than I could have hoped, you guys rock <3

Zenyatta woke to the warbling song of sparrows outside his window. His posterior cranial systems had optimized his memories overnight, filing through the previous day’s experiences and cataloguing them accordingly. Daybreak, invigorating as it was with such a clear mind, had always been his favourite time of day.

Thermal sensors beneath his faceplate picked up the warm, watery glow of the morning sun. He stretched, maintaining the cross-legged position he had fallen asleep in as he surveyed the room. Genji’s bed was empty, sheets pulled neatly to the sides.

The somatic nodes on his back detected electromagnetic pulses from a warm body, and he turned to see his pupil on the floor behind him.

“Good morning, Genji,” he murmured. “Were you unable to sleep?”

Genji shuffled to sit next to him. “Good morning, sensei. I… woke at six o’clock,” he admitted, “but decided to let you sleep longer. Yesterday must have been tiring for you.”

Indeed, while both of them made a habit of rising with the sun, Zenyatta typically woke earlier than Genji, and it was unusual for his systems to take so long to refresh. When he slept in, it was usually the result of heavy data loads that needed to be catalogued. He hummed thoughtfully. “I appreciate the sentiment, my student, but a few minutes of lost sleep will do me no harm.”

“I know,” Genji sighed. “You just looked… peaceful. I apologize.”

Zenyatta settled a hand on his pupil’s shoulder. “There is no need to ask forgiveness for sentimentality between friends. However, if we are to have time for morning stretches, we’d best make haste.”

While yesterday’s noon meeting had been a short and to-the-point gathering to welcome them back, Winston had scheduled further gatherings at 8am daily, maintaining that if they devoted their breakfast time to setting out daily tasks and making announcements it would allow Athena to devote more resources to security and surveillance. The downside to this was that Zenyatta’s internal chronometer told him it was 07:45 hours, leaving them precious little time. 

With this in mind, they agreed to perform the morning ritual in Genji’s room and stake out a better location the next day. There was only just enough room for both of them to move, even with the spartan surroundings.

Facing the window, Zenyatta leaned forward, placing one leg before him and one leg behind, testing the reaction of pistons and other pneumatic components. Genji mirrored his movements with feline grace. 

“I’m sorry for yesterday,” the cyborg murmured.

They lifted their arms in unison, twisting their feet to face away from the window in an arcing motion. “Think nothing of it, my student,” Zenyatta responded kindly. “It is important to keep one’s composure in heated situations as well as calm ones, but I appreciate that you spoke out in my defense.”

Together they each placed a hand on the floor, raised an arm above their heads, and lifted one leg off the ground, turning to face the ceiling. “I acted like a child towards Torbjörn,” Genji reflected. “I was blinded by anger. It was unfair of me to expect him to be impartial.”

“He fought in the first Omnic Crisis,” Zenyatta remarked as they shifted positions again. “I remember you telling me so, though I cannot recall when. While his behaviour was uncivil, I feel no animosity toward him. Rage is often bred from pain.” 

“Your wisdom is an inspiration, master,” Genji replied. “I shall strive to be more understanding of him today. I will still protest if he insults you, but I’ll make sure to do it politely.”

Though Genji’s mask hid his expression, Zenyatta knew him well enough to hear the shit-eating grin in his voice. 

A brazen alarm interrupted their routine. Genji jumped onto his feet, tensing for a moment before being hit with some realization and going to discover a dusty alarm clock that had fallen behind his bedside table. Zenyatta stood, then lifted himself into a hovering position. Checking his chronometer, he realized it was eight o’clock sharp. They were going to be late.

It was a shame, as he’d hoped to have time to reflect on his predicament. He still wasn’t fully convinced Overwatch was the place for him, for a multitude of reasons. After yesterday, the foremost was that an already-vilified organization would not benefit from the negative public attention that might come with having an omnic in its ranks. He could even end up doing more harm than good.

“Would you look at that!” Genji’s exclamation pulled the monk from his thoughts. “I must have left this clock here years ago. It still works after all this time.”

“Yes, and it seems to be informing us that we are woefully behind schedule,” Zenyatta teased. “Shall we remedy that?”

Genji nodded vigorously and they exited into the hallway. It was a quick dash to the mess hall, where they were met with the wafting smell of rich coffee and the buzz of lighthearted chatter. 

Most of the agents were already assembled: Zenyatta took note of a massive man who must have been Reinhardt at one table talking with two women, Torbjörn at another table with a man in a cowboy getup, and Tracer zipping between both groups. Winston hadn’t yet arrived, it seemed.

“Ah! If it isn’t our pint-sized metallic friend!” the large man bellowed enthusiastically, standing and sweeping Genji off his feet with a hug. Zenyatta chuckled; while Genji might have been on the small side, he would attribute the height difference mostly to the fact that Reinhardt was a veritable goliath of a human being.

“It is good to see you too!” Genji coughed, legs flailing. 

“Reinhardt, you’re going to choke him to death!” one of the women laughed, her voice lilting and accented. “Let him breathe!” 

The knight complied and set Genji down gingerly, like a wrestler handling a baby bird. But Genji hardly reacted; his eyes were on the woman who had spoken. He took a hesitant step forward, then another, and finally embraced her tightly.The other agents had the sense to remain quiet; even Tracer stopped her flittering. 

“Dr. Ziegler. It has been too long.”

Mercy let out a heavy sigh as though unburdening herself of years’ worth of stress. “Yes, Genji. It has.”

“Am I interrupting something?” Winston questioned from the doorway. 

“No, it’s quite alright,” Mercy laughed, sitting down and eyeing Zenyatta with friendly curiosity. 

Mechanical limitations stopped him from smiling, but he knew who she was and what she had done for Genji, and he was immensely grateful for her work. There would be time to talk and learn more about her later, but Winston was making his way to a slightly elevated stage at the head of the room.

“I wanted to start by saying that I’m touched that you’re all acting as though I’m the new leader of Overwatch,” Winston spoke, looking like he’d rather be knuckles-deep in a jar of peanut butter than addressing an attentive group of onlookers. “The only problem is that I’m not a commander. I’m a scientist. I’ll do what I can, but it’s probably best to hand over leadership to a more seasoned agent in the near future.”

“But you’re doing such a swell job! We all think you’re doing great, big guy!” Tracer protested, jumping out of her seat next to the cowboy- McCree, Zenyatta thought, recalling the names Genji had recited as they arrived yesterday. He tipped the rim of his hat in silent agreement. 

Zenyatta spoke up. “I am inclined to agree. You have made a wholly positive impression thus far, even if I have not been here long.”

Torbjörn spoke too, and Zenyatta could tell his words were barbed. “Those of us that have known you more than a day think yer doing good too, and that’s what really counts.”

“Aye! You have been doing a fine job!” Reinhardt exclaimed, and his brunette companion nodded appreciatively. Mercy clapped her hands and gave him a wide, encouraging grin. 

“I… thank you,” Winston said, his voice shaky with emotion. “Thank you. We’ll see how things go in the coming weeks, but it means a lot that all you’ve put your faith in me. I won’t let you down.”

He cleared his throat, taking a moment to compose himself. “As for today’s affairs, our main priority is ensuring the legalization of Overwatch activity so that we have more agency in mobilizing to provide help wherever we’re needed. The secondary priority is to recruit new members. I never heard back from many agents I contacted, and that’s fine. But we don’t even have the bare bones of a basic task force right now. Put simply, if something came up, we’d be in dire straits.”

“But…?” Tracer added encouragingly, seeming to reference some knowledge the rest of them didn’t have. She must have been chatting with him while they renovated.

Winston grinned and continued. “But I’ve already been in contact with several potential recruits! Within a week we’ll be meeting a lieutenant from Helix Security International, but some of you may know her as Fareeha Amari.”

McCree wheezed. “Pipsqueak! That’ll be a sight.”

“We’ve also spoken to a member of Korea’s Mobile Exo-Force and a technologically-gifted musician and freedom fighter from Brazil. They’ve shown interest and are set to arrive shortly after Fareeha. Having these arrivals necessitates either sound security protocols or the aforementioned legalization of Overwatch activity; if we can’t achieve either of those in the coming week, we’ll have to ask them to wait and we risk losing their interest. I’ll focus on that, but any suggestions are welcome. I was hoping the rest of you could get the watchpoint in working shape, and maybe devote some time to maintaining combat readiness,” Winston suggested. “Any objections?”

The mess hall murmured, but nobody protested Winston’s plans. Instead, they spent the next half hour ironing out a weekly schedule. Zenyatta found himself participating and even bantering with the others, who he was quickly beginning to consider friends.

-

At roughly 16:00 they’d planned to delegate an hour to close-combat sparring. Before any advanced tactics, they all agreed, it was best to make sure they were in proper shape.

Athena had run a quick algorithm to match them all with random partners, such that there was an added opportunity to catch up one-on-one. Zenyatta was eager to learn more about his partner, Angela Ziegler- codename Mercy. 

The athletic and training complex made up a large portion of the floor beneath the hangar. They’d passed the weights room and shooting range on their way to the gymnasium, where mats were laid out so that they could fall lightly if need be.

Zenyatta took in the sleek metal walls striped in blue; along with the sterile white lights they gave the room a stern, businesslike feel that was at odds with the crew’s chatter. 

He planted his feet on the ground and followed Mercy as she approached the nearest mat. She chirped a quick ‘good luck’ to Reinhardt and Tracer next to them, and the omnic echoed her with a wave in their direction.

“I must ask,” she said, turning to Zenyatta, “do you have any limitations I should know about? I wouldn’t want to harm you by accident.”

“I assure you I can hold my own,” he responded amiably. “But if you seek comfort in knowledge, there is sensitive wiring in my neck and lower back, and behind my faceplate. My head is vital to all my processes- analogous to a brain, you might say.”

“Then I’ll make sure not to hit it,” Mercy decided, swinging her caduceus staff and standing at the ready. “There’s no sense inviting injury by playing rough.”

Zenyatta nodded. “Words of wisdom. It does not surprise me that Genji thinks highly of you.”

For some reason this gave her pause, even as the pairs around them began sparring. She glanced over at Genji, already running circles around an exasperated McCree. “Does he really? I’ve had my doubts… during his extended recovery at our Swiss headquarters there were many times he would curse me for saving him.”

Zenyatta remembered Genji’s difficulty recounting such a miserable episode in his life. It had taken a long time for him to speak of it comfortably. “Rest assured that is no longer the case. He feels deeply indebted to you now that he has found peace with himself.”

“Found peace?” she sounded relieved, and her eyes glazed over. “He was so troubled… has he really changed?”

“Like an injured young bird that has finally learned to fly,” Zenyatta reassured her, touched by her concern for his pupil even after so many years. She clearly had a personal investment in Genji’s happiness, and the monk was glad to see he wasn’t the only one who cared deeply about him. 

The intercom broke the pace of their conversation as it crackled to life with Athena’s calm, authoritative voice. “Under Protocol E-64 I am required to notify you of an international plea for help hailing from Krasnoyarsk. The Russian Defense Forces report that the Siberian Omnium has begun constructing augmented military-grade Bastion units, and they are losing ground swiftly. The city itself will soon be under attack.”

“Run a quick search on respondents,” Winston said. The room stilled. The relief on Dr. Ziegler’s face disintegrated into dread. 

“As with their announcement a week ago that the omnium had resumed production of hostile forces, reports indicate that the international community is hesitant to become involved. The Protocol states that in the absence of response from international governments, Overwatch has a duty to provide aid if requested.” There was a brief silence. Then, “This doesn’t account for the Protocol’s convoluted footnotes, or its conflict with the Petras Act.”

Nobody spoke. 

Only that morning Winston had warned them about the consequences of making their activity known to the public. Only that week everyone had taken cares, in their own way, to avoid the helicopters and patrol boats as they arrived.

But if they didn’t answer the call, then why revive Overwatch at all?

“We’ve got to help them,” Tracer declared, conviction written across her face. 

Reinhardt lifted his fist above his head as though rallying a troop. “What are we waiting for? Let’s get going!”

Surveying the company assembled in the room, Winston nodded. “It’s a worrying prospect to be out in the field so soon, and it’s far from an ideal situation. But if we don’t take action, an entire city could be destroyed and with it tens of thousands of lives. I don’t think we have a choice. Athena, begin making preparations and taking inventory of everything we might need to bring. Everyone else, grab any personal effects you’ll need and we’ll reconvene in the mess hall in twenty minutes. Zenyatta, Brigitte, that includes you.”

The peppy, energetic atmosphere of the gymnasium devolved into a tense commotion as the assembled agents clamoured for the door. Mercy was gone from sight, carried on golden wings to Tracer’s side as she zipped into the hallway. 

As the others left, Zenyatta watched with growing discomfort. A pit of trepidation twisted in his core, jerking him from all attempts to organize his thoughts. He had arrived just yesterday and there hadn’t yet been time to decide if he was to join Overwatch let alone ask Winston to officiate his membership. Everything was happening too fast. In the past, when overloaded with information, he would withdraw to process it. If he took too long in doing so, he was the only one to suffer any consequences for it. That wasn’t the case this time.

Unhealthy as it was, there was no choice but to bury his dread. 

He lifted off the ground, catching up to Winston.They left the room, flicking the lights off with agonizing finality.


	3. Doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arriving in Krasnoyarsk brings new challenges for Zenyatta as he meets Zarya, a woman who grew up surrounded by the violence of the first Omnic Crisis. Tracer makes an admission. The looming threat posed by the Siberian Omnium grows all too clear.

It was unlike Zenyatta to withdraw from an opportunity to socialize, but he needed desperately to calm himself. The warm caress of the Iris was like an evening sun slipping below the horizon, leaving him cold and abandoned.

Around him chatter filled the fuselage of Overwatch’s signature military transport aircraft, an old but reliable G-530 model according to Winston. They’d boarded an hour ago in the washed-out light of a misty Mediterranean morning. Zenyatta had taken time to acquaint himself with the stout little plane, but he’d thoroughly examined every personalized nook and cranny twice over and had no choice now but to face the reality of how alone he was. He’d spent so much time wandering the world with nothing but his thoughts for company; he’d contemplated the meaning of diligence, generosity, acceptance, and eventually even existence itself. But never had he been forced to contemplate such intricacies and their real-life consequences in the span of a few hours. It was… trying.

Though he had only arrived yesterday, Zenyatta had been chosen to take part in the mission. Genji and Brigitte had been asked to stay at the Watchpoint so that the base wouldn’t be entirely unguarded in their absence. Brigitte wasn’t combat-ready, Winston argued, and Genji could flank any intruders silently if need be. McCree had opted out of the mission on his own accord, having spent the latter half of the night in the grasp of a stomach bug and emptying his gut repeatedly into the latrine. While most of the crew was content with the arrangement, Genji hadn’t been pleased.

Zenyatta recalled the lively fire in his student as he paced the airstrip, itching for action and already worried sick for his mentor. _I should be there for his first mission,_ Genji had insisted. _I’m the one that brought him here. And I am of no use just sitting here and watching security cameras!_

But Winston was insistent. With McCree sick as a dog and Brigitte unfamiliar with the base, there was no choice but to leave one more person behind, and Genji stood the best chance of warding off any unwanted intrusions by himself. True to his nature, Zenyatta had promised to return safely and brushed off any notion that he might have trouble with the mission. It shamed him deeply that it might turn out to be a lie, but the discord sown by admitting his worries would have caused them both undue agitation. 

Besides, Zenyatta had no right to harness another with his personal struggles, especially his own pupil.

For the fourth time since takeoff he turned inwards, hoping to calm himself through meditation. The last three times had been fruitless; the moment he broke his focus his thoughts wandered deep into anxiety’s treacherous lair. Envisioning the world around him as a vast river, as he’d done many times before, he released his fears and doubts into the current and let it carry them away.

The gossip in the fuselage dulled to a monotonous buzz, and before long the voices were drowned out by the burbling of the monk’s mental river.

All but one.

“-don’t even know why we’re bringin’ that pile of scrap along, eh, Reinhardt? Communicatin’ with the other omnics, Winston said, as if he was implyin’ we could talk them bots down and tuck ‘em into bed like babes.”

The river fell away, and a heavy, long-suffering sigh sank from Zenyatta’s vocal transmitter as he found himself again in the midst of the ship’s disorienting chaos. 

He turned and spoke. “Torbjörn, I understand your animosity towards me and my kind, but this is not the time. I should think you know better than to harm the entire squad’s morale by discrediting one teammate to another right before a mission begins. Faulty teamwork in a war zone could result in casualties. Please, just-” he made a plaintive, open-handed gesture. “Wait until it’s over, at which point I will happily listen to any criticisms you have for me.”

Reinhardt, who had been sitting next to the smaller man and only half-listening, now stood and clapped Zenyatta on the back, shaking him from his centre of balance and nearly throwing him to the ground. “Don’t worry, little omnic!” he exclaimed. “You will all be safe with me!”

The warmth of the knight’s smile brought some reassurance, but it wasn’t long before black bubbling doubt reached back up and pulled Zenyatta into its scheming caress.

-

Krasnoyarsk might have had some semblance to an icy wasteland in winter, but Zenyatta’s systems registered a balmy 26°C as they descended the craft. Humidity hung in the air like an unspoken afterthought. 

After the heat registered, it was the keening buzz that hit him. Even in continental Russia, summer heat brought swarms of mosquitoes, and the climate change of the past decade had intensified their numbers. 

The rest of the crew took immediately to swatting themselves. Tracer scratched her behind unceremoniously while Reinhardt moaned as they slipped through his armor, cursing himself loudly for over-preparing. At this rate, he cried, he would be eaten and cooked alive at the same time. The rest of them fared little better, though Mercy, for her part, had had the foresight to apply bug repellant. With only the faintest smile of motherly exasperation she passed the bottle around to the rest of the team.

The mosquitoes did nothing to bother Zenyatta, of course, but the murderous looks of the Russian Defense Forces did.

He remained silent as Winston went to greet the junior sergeant that had sent the transmission, a pink-haired bear of a woman named Aleksandra Zaryanova. She shot Zenyatta a sour look, but quickly turned her focus to debriefing Winston on the situation. 

The team hurried to follow Aleksandra to a nearby outpost, eager to escape the whining, blood-sucking swarm. Zenyatta stayed close, noting the unabashed disgust of the RDF members that fell in line to escort them. He was no stranger to the history of the first Omnic Crisis, having been created in its latter years, so it was easy to understand their suspicion. But it still left him with a lingering sense of foreboding.

What first appeared to be a military station to scout the Siberian Omnium’s activity turned out to be a repurposed bunker from the first crisis, complete with 3 underground floors and enough room to house a small company. After entering and passing through a short hallway the path opened into a control centre: holographic monitors lined the walls and soldiers observed them, some attentive and others joking casually amongst themselves. 

In the middle of the room was a virtual, topographical map of the surrounding 50km, with the omnium to the northeast and Krasnoyarsk to the southwest. Aleksandra and Winston settled around it, and the rest of the Overwatch crew with them. Zenyatta did his best to focus on the task at hand as the repartee around them quickly dissolved into silent tension. Too many eyes. Too many whispers. A spotlight cast upon him, charged with the same breed of deadly attention that had killed Mondatta. An electrical shiver jerked down his spinal nodes.

The team was talking strategy. With considerable effort, Zenyatta folded his fears neatly into a box and stowed them for later rumination. He would need days of downtime after this mission, even if all went according to plan, but in the moment it was vital that he paid attention. 

They would go to scout the omnic forces and- despite Aleksandra’s protests- remain nonviolent if at all possible, looking instead for any reasoning behind the attacks. This, Winston explained, was where Zenyatta’s assistance would be vital, as many of the augmented Bastion units possessed no vocal functions and communicated in a manner only understood by fellow omnics.

The scrutiny returned, dredging up the anxiety he had just managed to bury. 

“I will admit,” Aleksandra said with a heavy accent, “it struck me as inappropriate for you to bring an omnic here. Many of these good men and women have lost family and friends to barbaric attacks by its kind.”

Nerves aside, Zenyatta knew how to deal with anti-omnic tension. “I understand completely, and I will do my best to keep a low profile. I am here to translate, and no more.”

This seemed an adequate reassurance for the junior sergeant, though many of her compatriots continued to mutter amongst themselves. Zenyatta reminded himself that there might be time later to make peace with them, but for the time being, ensuring mission success was paramount. Like Winston had said, they needed to have a full understanding of the omnium’s workings before moving forward. 

With help from other members of the defense forces and Overwatch’s own team, Winston and Aleksandra- _I go by Zarya, she mentioned_ \- outlined a plan. The Overwatch team would borrow an RDF helicopter while she and two others piloted a svyatogor mech; for the time being they’d map out the position and number of any omnic troops they could see, then regroup at the bunker to discuss their next steps. Unfortunately, there was barely enough room in the aircraft for four humans. A man as massive as Reinhardt couldn’t hope to fit, nor could a gorilla, let alone a stout one like Winston. They settled on Lena piloting, with Angela, Torbjörn, and Zenyatta as passengers. While his metal components made him heavier than a human, the monk took up little space relative to many other omnics. 

From the bunker, Reinhardt and Winston would keep up communications with both teams. Because they weren’t using their Overwatch transport craft, Winston decided it would be best for him to take charge of maintaining the line of communication; uploading Athena to the helicopter would take too long and could compromise the efficiency of her mainframe back in Gibraltar, where she was still devoting all her resources to surveillance. 

As they squeezed into the battered old helicopter and took their seats, it was difficult for Zenyatta to stop his mind from wandering. He had met many other omnics in his travels, but rarely encountered those who couldn’t converse in any human languages. Those that couldn’t tended to be… difficult, led more by instinct than wisdom. With a sideways glance at Torbjörn, he worried that many around him would reduce that nature to simple algorithms and risk calculations. How were such omnics any different from the deer or tigers that lived in the woods here? Every living creature had an inborn drive to keep itself alive.

He hoped they might complete the mission without violence from either side, but if the other omnics forced his hand, Zenyatta had no reservations about fighting to protect his allies. He advocated harmony, but unfortunate as it was, absolute pacifism was too often misplaced in a world that thrived on violence.

The humming of the copter whirring to life calmed Zenyatta’s churning mind. Regardless of what the immediate future held, he reminded himself, there _would_ be time to contemplate it later. They would not fail. 

Verdant boughs, heavy with succulent summer leaves, swiftly shrunk into miniature as they gained altitude. In the distance, the uniform sea of green fell away into rolling hills and, in the distance, the somber hump of the Siberian Omnium. The svyatogor ambled noisily beneath them. 

Zenyatta sat back in his seat, finding comfort in the natural beauty of the countryside. Two decades ago it had been a battlefield, and even now the bones of massive omnics were visible below them, long repurposed by the earth. He had never fought here. But he’d known those who had.

“Zenyatta? You off in space, love?” 

He came to attention as Tracer peered back at him from the cockpit. “I was. It is always important to seek moments for introspection.”

“Dunno if I’d say spacing out is _introspection_ ,” she giggled. “Seems more like being really far out than looking inside!”

This had Zenyatta chuckling, his doubts slipping away like water off his shoulders. “And what separates us from the cosmos? The universe resides in all of us, just as we exist within it.”

Their pilot opened her eyes comically wide in good-humoured teasing. “Ooooh, that’s some deep stuff!”

Silence filled the small craft for a few moments, and Zenyatta began watching the landscape again before Tracer spoke again, quieter this time. “You really sound like Mondatta sometimes. Did you know him?”

At the mention of his former master, Zenyatta felt a heavy pang of sorrow in his chest. “Yes. We all did; to this day there are only a few dozen of us, all well acquainted. He was my mentor, and through his teachings I found peace and self-compassion, which I now pass on to my own pupils.”

Next to Lena, Torbjörn scoffed, but followed up quickly with a snort and a brief coughing fit. Zenyatta paid him little heed, waiting instead for a response.

The Brit, on the other hand, shot him a sharp side-eyed glare before continuing. “Right, just like Genji. It’s really admirable of you, love.” Her eyes now held steady on the horizon, and she hesitated before continuing. “I was there that night.”

Zenyatta couldn’t help but feel as though the wires in his midsection were twisting, and he wondered if this was how humans experienced nausea. “I’m sorry. It must have been a horrific experience.”

“I-” she hiccuped, and patted her chest to pass it off as dainty belch. “I tried to save him. The assassin, she was a frightful thing. Talon. I thought I was going to give her the old run-around so the bodyguards could escort him away, y’know? Nasty twat lined up a perfect shot at me and I had to warp back out of there so she didn’t shatter the accelerator. Thought I got off scot-free, but then she went all, ‘looks like the party is over,’ and… she got him. She got him as, as some _consolation prize_ for not shooting me!

Zenyatta listened silently. He could hear the tremor in her voice, see the way she fussed with her hair and wiggled in her seat. And while he was overcome with sorrow for his brother, he also felt an immense sympathy for her. 

He reached forward and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I thank you with all that I am for your courage, my dear. There is no shame in failure, especially when you have tried your best. While I miss Mondatta greatly, he understood the risks he took when making his speeches, and I know he would have done nothing differently were he given another chance.”

Tracer left one hand on the wheel, and lifted the other to rest it on his. “Thanks, love… I hope you’re right.”

As he gave her a comforting squeeze, he noticed Torbjörn appraising him wordlessly. It was the first time he’d seen anything but disgust in how the man looked at him. 

Static broke the momentary peace. Winston’s voice cut in and out, made indiscernible by shouting in the background.

“Winston! You’re breaking up, love! You’ll have to speak again!” In less than a second Tracer was all business. Zenyatta withdrew his hand and glanced at Mercy, silent beside him the entire flight but her face now wrought with worry. 

“Not-- ro-- om-- come-- it-- am--” The speech broke into a roar of primal rage, and the transmission ended.

At the same time, the comms cut in with a message from the svyatogor below them. A long string of Russian expletives, then, “The omnics! They attacked our base from the east!”

“Roger that! Re-routing and making a beeline back to base. Cavalry’s on the way!” Tracer shouted, gripping the cyclic control like a lifeline. 

The helicopter wheeled and the peaceful green horizon devolved into chaos. Mercy fell onto Zenyatta and he held her tightly, struggling to keep his own seat as they twisted. Just as the craft righted itself a wave of turbulence nearly sent them into a tailspin, and the monk caught a glimpse of the svyatogor’s arms flailing as it struggled to break free from a horde of smaller machines swarming its legs.

“Hold tight, loves!” Tracer hollered. “We’re in for a rough ride!”

Zenyatta felt like he was watching himself from afar. He’d often found peace in the feeling of separation between his mind and body, but now it brought nothing but dread and grim realization.

They had flown into an ambush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it took so long!!! i had a lot of trouble round the middle of the chapter, but shit's getting real so it'll probably be a lot more fun to write next chapter and so a lot faster!


	4. Destruction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As violence erupts on the Krasnoyarsk Front, Zenyatta and Torbjörn find themselves cut off from the rest of the crew and have to work together if they're to survive. Zenyatta relives memories of a time long past. Torbjörn challenges his prejudices.

The sky rolled as Tracer fought for control of the helicopter.

Below them the svyatogor flailed its arms as the soldiers within fought to throw off the horde of omnic forces. The assailants were shaped like the bastions of the first Omnic Crisis, but larger, sleeker, their hands tapering to wicked claws that rent the mech’s armor like paper. The struggle disrupted the flow of air around the copter, and the turbulence jostled the occupants to the point that Tracer could hardly keep her hands on the control. 

Zenyatta braced himself, one hand pressed against the inner wall of the copter and the other gripping the back of Tracer’s seat. Mercy righted herself, and Torbjörn reached forward to yell into the comms. Were Winston and Reinhardt alright? How many bots were there? Had they breached the bunker?

To everyone’s surprise, a voice came back through the static, just marginally clearer than before. Not Winston’s deep timbre, but a brassy roar from Reinhardt. “We-- overrun! Shield-- out! Hurry, friends!”

“We’re coming!” Torbjörn shouted above the groaning helicopter. “Hold fast!”

The copter lurched again, rolling to the side as the rotor turned nearly perpendicular to the ground below. Zenyatta shifted to cover the others with his body as he realized as the windows were being shattered by enemy fire- with the svyatogor brought nearly to the ground, the bastions were turning their attention to the sky and the craft that hovered precariously in it. 

With tail spinning, they wheeled out of the line of fire. In front, Zenyatta saw Tracer’s shoulders hunched in concentration as she contorted her body, working the both the pedals and the control stick at once to keep them in the air. “Brace yourselves,” she gasped. “We’re taking too much damage.”

Beneath them the craft creaked dangerously. The bastions below rerouted their fire without a second thought, peppering the cabin with bullets. Tracer pulled them higher, fighting to get out of range, but the helicopter moaned and arched its back like a dying beast-

And then they were in a tailspin. Sky and earth hurtled in and out of Zenyatta’s view as one of the doors came loose- the vacuum sucked them all towards it, and Mercy flew past him, only the barest flicker of gold reassuring him that the wings on her Valkyrie suit had activated.

No time to think about her odds of evading the barrage. Torbjörn tumbled into him and Tracer falling out of her seat compounded the pressure. 

Zenyatta knew what he had to do if they were to survive. With immense concentration he withdrew into himself, letting serenity radiate through the fog of his earlier anxieties and shedding all worldly concerns as they hurtled towards the earth. The screaming chaos fell away and held his companions to his chest. 

Golden arms bloomed as his soul unfurled and fell into the caress of the Iris. Confusion, awe, and terror passed over Tracer and Torbjörn’s faces; he steadied them against him with his corporeal hands and rested a spectral one on each of their heads to reassure them. “The Iris embraces you,” he hummed, not with his voice but with his mind.

Then slowly, the shining halo around them faded, and the world returned in hyper-focus. Zenyatta lay on the ground, every grain of dirt a single entity as his processors began to go into shock. An ant, unperturbed by the upheaval around it, crawled up his shoulder. He cocked his head at it and tsked. This was far too dangerous a place for such a tiny, vulnerable creature.

Torbjörn’s strained shouting brought him back. He and Tracer were on their feet, fending off the bastions that descended on the crash site. Zenyatta realized numbly that he ought to help them out. He moved to push himself to his feet and his visual sensors flashed white as pain overloaded his systems, pulsing from his pelvis. Something had trapped him.

The vivid details around him dissipated into a haze as his processors coped with the damage to his body. A splash of orange on silver- Tracer was scaling the svyatogor. Torbjörn scoured the wreckage of the helicopter, picking out machinery and repurposing it, building a small turret as Zenyatta watched on with astonishment. 

As his faculties returned, he realized grimly that he wasn’t going to be able to pull himself out of the wreckage on his own. He twisted to see the damage: half of the helicopter’s broken tail was crushing him from the waist-down, with the other half teetering precariously above, still attached by vestiges of groaning metal and held aloft by the branches of a silver birch. A worrying situation, but his companions had escaped the crash unscathed, and that brought him some comfort. 

His safety was a concern, but ultimately not a priority, Zenyatta thought. The tail could hold out a while longer. He sent one of the orbs still hovering around his neck to envelop Torbjörn in comforting warmth; the Swede eyed him warily, but quickly returned his focus to the turret he’d built.

The shattered cabin to Zenyatta’s right creaked, and he caught sight of a bastion climbing over it, trying to flank them. Hoping to avoid any more violence than had already occurred, he let a short string of throaty beeps- _not enemy, hold fire_ \- but its yellow lights flashed red and it crouched, ready to lunge. 

Before it could even leap from the cabin, Zenyatta sent his remaining orbs at it in a rush and it toppled into the brushes with a keening whistle. Torbjörn’s turret locked onto the powerful, struggling limbs; within a matter of seconds, the beast-like omnic had stopped moving.

“It wouldn’t listen,” Zenyatta warned. “They may be under the influence of a God Program-”

“What matters is they want us dead!” Torbjörn barked. “Less talkin’ and more fightin’, omnic!”

If there was no way to reason with their assailants, then Zenyatta had no qualms with that. Another bastion came from the left and Torbjörn’s makeshift turret locked onto it, nearly toppling itself with the recoil of its own fire. Unsure of an orb of discord’s effectiveness on a mind-controlled unit, Zenyatta opted instead to pellet it with orbs of destruction, each aimed expertly to ward off its attacks.

Above him the copter’s tail creaked, quivering threateningly in the mess of leaves and branches. If it fell, Zenyatta knew he could find himself in the Iris’ eternal light a good deal earlier than anticipated. “If you have a moment, Torbjörn-”

“I. Do. Not!” Torbjörn snapped, frantically hammering out his turret’s weak points as another bastion advanced. “I _said_ less talkin’!”

The broken tail shrieked and dislodged. Zenyatta recoiled but a low-lying branch caught its descent, bending under the weight. _“Torbjörn I need help-”_

Finally the man whipped around and his widening eyes took in the imminent death above his only remaining squadmate. He raced for Zenyatta, grabbing his hand and pulling. When that didn’t work he wrapped his arms around the monk’s midsection, growling at the exertion as Zenyatta’s legs finally began to come free.

The branch gave and the broken tail hurtled down on them. Zenyatta kicked free of the grimy wreckage but the two halves of the copter’s tail collided and before he or Torbjörn could react they were on him, metal screaming, wires straining, crushing him.

-

The omnic found it easier to watch the sky, gleaming with a thousand eyes from behind the forest canopy, than to turn its attention to the carnage on the ground.

The Nghệ An Omnium was still visible in the distance, consumed by a ravenous inferno. The humming insects and lush foliage of the jungle made for a nicer environment, it thought, and wondered why. 

Daintily it skirted the mess of human and omnic bodies, tangled in the roots of thousand-year-old trees. It did not understand why it recoiled at such carnage. So far from the omnium, the algorithms that dictated its actions fumbled, fell apart into a turbid muck of errors and uncertainties. 

The slaughter seemed… it dredged its systems for a word. Improper. Unseemly. 

Irreverent.

Movement from deeper in the forest sent the omnic’s neural networks into alarm and it tightened its grip on the oversized gun in its arms. Hazards were to be eliminated; such a simple conclusion required no deliberation. 

In the dry summer air, leaves crackled under its feet, alerting the threat long before it arrived. The presence made no move to retreat, and as the omnic approached it was startled to see one of its own kind. While they were of a similar make, the other omnic was distinctly _unfamiliar._ Visual processors honed in on the noble slope of its pale faceplate, the patterned blue garment covering its legs, the relaxed fluidity with which it stood. The wildflowers it had just left on the bloody chest of a human soldier.

“Greetings,” the stranger said, and the omnic withdrew uneasily. Why had it spoken in a human tongue?

As if sensing the tension, it let out a short series of whirrs- no, that was a _chuckle-_ in a distinctly masculine voice. It- _he?-_ spoke again, this time in the binary language understood by all omnics. “I mean no harm. I came only to respect the fallen.”

“What is your designation?” 

The outsider opened his arms. “I have long since moved past arbitrary labels intended only to distinguish our models and dates of production.”

With some difficulty, the omnic reconsidered the algorithms it was meant to run when encountering another of its kind. “I am 41Z-2056. Identify yourself. Please.”

Another odd, chortling noise. The soldier withdrew, shaking its head in confusion as the other omnic responded. “I concede to your persistence, my friend. You may call me Mondatta.”

“That is not a standard designation.” The processes for interacting with its compatriots were failing. The omnic brought its hands to its head. This was illogical, incorrect. _Frustrating._ “What are you?” it demanded. “What is allowing you to manipulate my programming?”

The pale omnic- Mondatta- stepped lightly over the bodies, walking with the gentle grace of a wild crane. He came to stand before 41Z, resting a hand on its tensed shoulder. “I didn’t mean to alarm you. I am doing nothing to interfere with your thoughts; I am here only to honour the dead.”

“This… makes no sense.” The soldier withdrew from Mondatta’s touch, turning away to face the murk of the jungle. “If you aren’t interfering with my systems, then I am malfunctioning. And what is a _dead?”_

Mondatta laughed again, his machinations infuriatingly out of reach, but 41Z consciously overrode the annoyance. If the other omnic knew something it didn’t, then it needed to learn from him, especially if he helped to reduce the hazy doubt interfering with its decision-making.

“The meaning of death depends on who you ask, my friend. Some believe it is the cessation of all thought and emotion, while others hold that it marks one’s transcendence to a higher plane. Regardless, both omnic and human deserve more than this.” Mondatta swept his arm in a wide circle, indicating the massacre around them. “Alone, I cannot give them proper ceremonies or burials, but at the very least, a flower seemed an acceptable gesture of remembrance.”

41Z set down its gun and seated itself on a nearby boulder, unease dwindling as curiosity took its place. It had never experienced such a transmission of ideas before; its ‘conversations’ with other omnics had in the past been limited to combat operations. “If death has a statistically significant chance of resulting in the termination of all cognitive operations, then is it not reprehensible to bring death upon others as I have done?”

“Regardless of belief, to end a life before its time is a terrible act of destruction,” Mondatta reflected. “That is why we must take care to safeguard the lives of those around us. The soldiers here, regardless of allegiance. The insects that will come in time to inhabit the humans’ remains. Even the trees that hold a vigil above these bodies- all are deserving of our respect and protection.”

41Z found itself drawn to the apparently boundless wisdom of this Mondatta, though he could be vexingly evasive. “I have taken hundreds of lives,” it confessed. “Does this mean I am terrible?”

Illuminated by the moonlight, Mondatta offered his hand. “Perhaps, but you knew no better, and in that there is no shame so long as you strive to understand the error of your ways. If you wish to truly understand the world around you, and the world _within_ you, then you face a never-ending journey. But you needn’t face it alone. Walk with me, my friend.”

Gazing at the battlefield that had marred the forest with violence and hatred, the younger omnic stood and took his hand. 

-

The world was cold and silent. 

Pain throbbed up and down Zenyatta’s somatic nodes. He rolled onto his side, glad that he was in proper possession of his mental faculties but reeling from the flashback. It wasn’t often that such distant memories replayed in his dreams. 

The sounds of battle had been replaced by a gentle breeze singing in the canopy above. The sky was lit by the dying hues of twilight; with only a waning sliver of moon, he would be enveloped in near-darkness soon. A barrier of wreckage almost two feet high walled them in around the body of the copter.

Zenyatta was relieved to see Torbjörn’s dark silhouette nearby, back turned and still monitoring his turret. He must have managed to fend off the bastions.

He tried to get the man’s attention, but his words came out a distorted garble of static and high-frequency whining. That was worrying; the falling machinery must have damaged his vocal functionality. 

The noises were enough to alert Torbjörn, who turned to watch him wearily. “You took a real bad hit back there, bot. Got you out of the way of the worst of it, but your chest took some damage, and, well…” he gestured behind Zenyatta, who turned to see one of his legs shattered into pieces. 

Before he could react or consider how to voice his displeasure, Torbjörn continued. “Now look, I might not like you, but you did well back there, so I’m, uh.” He cleared his throat and turned back to his turret. “I coulda got you out of there a bit faster.”

Yes, Zenyatta remembered perfectly well how he’d been too preoccupied with his turret to see the imminent danger. Were he able to speak he might have lowered himself to a verbal jab or two, but it was better, he thought, that he was forced to abandon his petty frustration. He couldn’t hold the man’s nature against him, even if it had nearly brought about a tragedy. There would be time to deliberate on such matters of morality later; for the time being, they would be hard-pressed to survive the night if any bastions returned.

Hoping Torbjörn had more information, he let out a soft _bwoo_ and opened his arms inquisitively when the man turned to glance at him. “Save yer energy for the time being. We’d better lie low ‘till morning and see if a search party picks us up,” he said, offering no further information about Tracer or Mercy or anyone else unaccounted for. 

With an awkward, lopsided grin he added, “Promise not to disassemble ya in yer sleep. Get some rest, omnic.”

Zenyatta feared what might befall them if he fell asleep, but his mind was addled by the exhaustion of maintaining Transcendence for so long, the memory of meeting Mondatta, and the constant system checks and warnings prompted by his injuries. He would be of little use if he forced himself to stay awake.

Uneasily, he let his mind fall into hibernation, hoping the night’s calibrations might bring just a shred of clarity in the morning.


	5. Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isolated from the team, his vocal functions damaged, Zenyatta struggles to communicate with Torbjörn. The problem worsens when he makes a new friend. Tracer makes a call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look ok i don't know what a normal swedish accent is like, but torbjörn sounds like a pirate to me. so he speaks like one. i am Sorry.

The trill of birdsong roused Zenyatta from his sleep. For a moment he allowed himself the illusion that he’d never left Gibraltar, that the disastrous mission to Krasnoyarsk was nothing but a chaotic nightmare. That he wasn’t miles from civilization and under threat from a malevolent God Program.

As long as he escaped its notice, he would retain his own thoughts and emotions, but there was a very real risk of being overridden by the near-omnipotent AI if it detected him. 

Only minutes into his waking hours and he was already worrying, Zenyatta thought to himself. Perhaps his brothers and sisters had been right in warning him not to leave the Shambali, that he hadn’t been ready, but there was no sense in deepening his doubt. 

He turned his attention to the present. The day shone bright and clear but his chronometer held steady at 15:17, which couldn’t be right. It must have broken when the wreckage crushed his chest. Judging instead by the position of the sunlight filtering through the canopy above, he guessed it was much earlier, around 9:00. The air was crisp and cool, punctuated by an occasional gust wafting through the forest on a leisurely morning jaunt.

The warbling returned and Zenyatta spied a yellow bird with a white breast and striking black markings preening in the tree above him. He chirped back blithely and the bird descended a branch, peeping at him from behind a pine bough. It looked shy, he thought, as though being introduced to a new friend.

That was when he noticed the bastion. 

Zenyatta bit down sharply on the instinct to lash out in self-defense. It stood contemplatively in the underbrush outside the wall of scrap and wreckage, its lights a relaxed sky blue. Unlike yesterday’s attackers, it seemed as though it had been produced many years earlier, and the clumps of grass clinging to its head and shoulders all but confirmed his hunch.

“Hello,” he booped cautiously.

The bastion let out a long, excited string of zwees and dweets. Its speech patterns were elementary, but easy enough to understand. “Friend! Awake. Happy. I make bad omnics gone. Want leave. Bad place. Come? Friends?”

Zenyatta did his best to pull himself into a lotus position, but without a leg his centre of balance was off and he had to lean against the wall of wreckage. Too much weight on his stump sent pain shooting through the open wires. “We are hoping to make a retreat, yes, but my injuries hamper my mobility. I cannot speak to my human companion, and he dislikes me. He will probably have choice words for you when he…”

He trailed off. The camp was empty. “...wakes.”

The bullet-ridden shell of a turret was the only sign that Torbjörn had ever been there. The bastion zooped apologetically. “Had to! Little bug kept stinging. Ouch. Saw human, but hid.”

It was a relief his new friend had not, in fact, killed his squadmate. That would have been an unfortunate start to the day. Much better that the turret was the only fatality, though its father might think otherwise when he returned. 

Zenyatta pondered his absence. Perhaps Torbjörn had left to look for supplies or scout the area, assuming his turret would work as a substitute guardian for an injured omnic in his absence. Irresponsible, he thought with a withering touch of bitterness, but he had to believe in the man’s reasoning. There was no other way to build trust between them, and it had turned out fine thus far.

The yellow bird that had woken Zenyatta warbled again and fluttered over to the bastion, landing comfortably on its shoulder. “A companion?” he asked curiously.

The bastion bweed enthusiastically. “Friend! Protect. Leave bad place.”

A noble cause, and one that led Zenyatta to believe this bastion was trustworthy so long as it evaded the notice of the God AI as he did. He waved warmly at the bird as it chittered bashfully from the safety of its perch on the bastion. With such company he could almost forget that they were in the middle of a hostile war zone.

He would have liked to stay with them, but if the bastion’s goal was to protect its feathered friend, he had no desire to hinder its departure. “I would advise you to continue on your way,” he said, thankful that he could at least converse with other omnics despite the trauma to his vocal transmitter. “Staying for my sake could put you and your companion in greater danger than that which you already face.”

“But _friend,_ ” the bastion whined loudly. Its cry startled a nearby flock of starlings into flight, but the yellow bird was unperturbed. “Two friend now. Come. I help.”

It scaled the wall of debris with ease and set about collecting the shattered fragments of Zenyatta’s leg. “Fix, fix,” it hummed as he looked on with chagrin. Bastion units from the first war were fitted with tools to provide basic repairs on themselves, but this one was woefully ill-equipped to tackle the complex machinery of a human-shaped omnic. 

It was nevertheless a heartwarming gesture, and brought some comfort in a sea of overwhelming uncertainty. Zenyatta rested his weight on the wreckage, shifting so none of it jabbed into his back and damaged his body further.

True self was without form, he thought ruefully, but having to cart around the metal husk that contained his mind could be a trial and a half sometimes.

He wished Mondatta was alive. He would have guidance, answers for the new and unanticipated struggles of joining Overwatch. Steady words of wisdom that had always been able to vanquish Zenyatta’s intrusive doubts. Strangers had often come to compare the way they carried themselves, calm and composed, but to Zenyatta the difference between them had always been clear as crystal springs. Mondatta’s peace came naturally from within, and Zenyatta’s was cultivated through years of discipline and meditation. Through the time they had spent together. 

But even in such a perfect world, his mentor’s warm, gracious counsel would be out of reach in such forbidding wilderness. Zenyatta curled up, pulling his remaining leg to his chest as he watched the well-intentioned bastion experiment with his shattered limb. The other omnic kept humming to itself and he let himself sink into the singsong rhythm, hiding from the silky whispers of old demons.

-

It might have been an hour or two but it felt like just moments before blustery shouting penetrated the calm of their melodic companionship. Torbjörn, Zenyatta thought with a healthy serving of exasperation. The Swede vaulted over the wall and into view and immediately stuck his forefinger in the bastion’s direction.

“I was real close to actually thinkin’ maybe ya weren’t so bad, but really, omnic? Lettin’ one of them snakes in our nest? Typical!”

The bastion retreated with an agitated dweet, its limbs turning as it reconfigured itself into a turret. “Not friend.”

Zenyatta put his hands out, trying to stop Torbjörn from coming closer and frightening the bastion further. “Come now-”

The words came out haltingly, interspersed with static and harsh keening. Dread wrapped its dark arms around him. Hours of silence as the bastion sung had almost made him forget but now the terrifying fact that _he couldn’t talk_ returned all too quickly. How was he supposed to negotiate? With tension between Torbjörn and the bastion quickly rising, he felt as though a single misstep could set off violence like a spark in a fireworks factory. 

Zenyatta struggled to pull himself up straighter despite the pain, to carry more of a presence as he’d once learned by shadowing Mondatta. He addressed the bastion, since it was the only one he could communicate with. “Pay no heed to him. He is mean but not dangerous.”

The bastion’s lights were flashing a distressed yellow, and Zenyatta knew it was fighting to suppress its core programming, the thousand screaming voices telling it to shoot first and ruminate only after the threat had been eliminated. “I know, I know,” he continued soothingly, all too aware that diplomacy was the only flimsy barrier between him and a hail of bullets. “I understand that you’re frightened, friend. I have struggled with the same fears. But no harm will come to you by his hand.”

Torbjörn listened to the binary chatter with a disparaging scowl. He fixed Zenyatta with a fierce, expectant look that made him realize the man was _trusting_ him to mollify the anxious bastion. Rather than crumble under the life-or-death pressure, Zenyatta was heartened that Torbjörn had finally put his faith in him.

He kept talking. “You’re okay. Nobody here is going to hurt you or your friend. We want only to go on our way.”

“No hurt?” the bastion bweed, its lights alternating yellow and blue. The bird tittered inquisitively at Torbjörn. 

Zenyatta nodded. “No hurt.”

Finally the bastion’s yellow distress signals ceased and the light on its rudimentary faceplate returned to a full-time azure. It reverted to its recon configuration and bent delicately over Zenyatta’s broken leg, lifting it to show Torbjörn as if to say _look, I only want to help._

He threw his arms in the air, which was the most neutral reaction Zenyatta could have hoped for. Rather than stir the simmering tension, he had the wisdom to change the topic “‘M afraid I don’t have the tools to fix yer leg, but we’ll take the pieces with us and we can fit it back on later. For now, might as well make yerself at home with yer new... buddy. I couldn’t find any water ‘round here, so I’m goin’ t’ check that Russian mech for supplies or survivors. Try not to burn the forest down while I’m gone.” 

Perhaps that was for the best. Zenyatta would be of little use in his current state, and had a lot of questions for the bastion. He nodded again and Torbjörn watched him a moment longer before turning and heading back out of their makeshift base camp, grumbling to himself about omnics, scrap metal, and cahoots. 

“Mean,” the bastion booped softly as it returned to work.

-

By the time Torbjörn returned the amber hues of dusk had lit the forest in a deceptively serene light. The ground beneath Zenyatta was growing cold but Bastion had come to sit next to him, keeping him warm with the heat given off by its internal systems. It had managed to piece together some of the larger shrapnel into an apparatus that looked just a little like his leg, for which he was thankful, even if it was still far from functional. He was glad for Bastion’s company; while he’d have had an opportunity to meditate were he alone, he wondered if solitude was too much for him in his current state. Before the Shambali, introspection had terrified Zenyatta. Peering into the corners of his mind had brought fears of what lurked in the darkness there, and sometimes still did, despite all he’d learned.

It was a relief that Bastion had focused only on pragmatic omnic concerns- repairs, language barriers between their models, the looming threat of the nearby God Program. In hindsight, Zenyatta was thankful it hadn’t overridden his thoughts in the helicopter. Bastion told him it’d seen only the newer models of its kind in the woods, and suggested the AI knew of their presence but didn’t think there was a use for them. Regardless, Zenyatta responded, he was glad it had decided to leave them alone. They paused when they heard Torbjörn returning, stomping through the brush with his telltale huffing and grumbling. 

“Still beep-boopin’ away, I see,” he muttered disapprovingly as he hopped the junk wall and dropped an armful of supplies held by an oily rag. “Yer on thin ice, bot- don’t think I’ve been likin’ your chatter with that bastion.”

Zenyatta could only shrug- if he hadn’t talked to Bastion, they would probably both be dead, but he couldn’t point that out in his current state. Frustration knotted in his mind: yesterday he had been worth protecting as he slept and this morning he’d been trusted to diffuse a dangerous situation, but now just talking with another omnic cast doubt on his allegiances. Following these mercurial mood swings tried his patience, and he could only hope to keep up well enough to avoid further conflict. 

Rather than taking the opportunity to dive into an anti-omnic spiel, at least, Torbjörn turned his attention to the bundle. “Found some good stuff in that mech’s storage lockers. Two days of emergency rations, not that it makes a difference to yer kind, a flashlight, and a radio. Looks t’ be in workin’ order. No reply when I tried back in the svyatogor, but we’ll keep it around.” 

Zenyatta nodded. It was wholly unpleasant to be so vulnerable, to have his actions so open to misinterpretation. He had no choice but to remain silent as Torbjörn opened a bottle of water from a rations pack and chugged it, paying no mind to the need for restraint. He had no ability, either, to suggest planning for the next day, or ask whether there was any sign of the others. 

Luckily, they didn’t have to wait long. Just minute after they had settled down the radio in the centre of camp crackled to life. Torbjörn dove for it like a lifeline while Bastion cocked its head curiously. 

“Torbjörn? Was that you earlier? Can you hear me? Follow my voice! There’s a radio!”

It must have been relief that injected a quaver into Torbjörn’s voice. “Lena, lass, what took ya so long?”

“Bweeeee,” Bastion exclaimed, leaning down into the radio only to be shoved away.

“Y’allright there?” Tracer asked, babbling a mile a minute through a device that might as well have been designed for a whale. “What’s the beeping? Is Zenyatta okay? Have you got food and water? We drove those omnic wankers off but they made a real mess of the bunker! Oh, uh, no offense, Zenny!”

A rueful chuckle just barely made it through the flickering static of Zenyatta’s voice box. What he would have given to assure her that all was well. He was just happy to hear the sound of her voice, and hoped her presence over the comms meant the others were well too.

“One at a time, now!” Torbjörn reminded her. “You’re breakin’ up. We’re a little worse for wear, but we’re alive. What’s everybody else’s status?”

“We’re all fine. Some broken bones and bruised egos though!” Her voice faltered. “Look, the RDF… they’re not happy. They called us in as a last resort, and ‘round forty of them are dead anyways. I think they might be blaming us.”

Torbjörn snorted. “It was their plan as much as it was ours! What’s the sense in accusin’ each other when we could be focusing on beating the nuts and bolts out of the _real_ enemy?”

Though he had no way to voice it, Zenyatta agreed. Many times during their travels Genji had told him of Overwatch’s difficulty in terminating or at least quarantining the God Programs from the first Omnic Crisis. It had taken years and now, the moment as another appeared, they played directly into its favour and led their allies into a death trap despite their best intentions. How, he wondered, did the heroes around him deal with such heavy responsibility? With the knowledge that their actions- or lack thereof- had the potential to bring about so much death and destruction? 

Unable to voice his worries, he was left to listen as Lena outlined the situation, fighting through the static to keep them updated. She’d managed to regroup with Angela and the two surviving svyatogor pilots, including Junior Sergeant Zaryanova. Winston, Reinhardt, and six RDF soldiers were all that remained of the omnic assault on the bunker; they had been airlifted to the city proper, and then transferred to Moscow, to be interrogated by military officials from the main branch of the Russian Army. The surviving soldiers, she said, were arguing valiantly in favour of the Overwatch activity and Zarya’s decision to reach out for aid. On the less fortunate side, the city of Krasnoyarsk and the surrounding countryside were being razed to the ground by the dangerous new bastion units as she spoke.

The line buzzed and Lena strained to shout through it, but distance was wearing on the already-archaic radio. “Better make the rest quick,” she rushed. “Not good to stay on the radar too long anyway. The army will send a craft to the remains of the bunker in a day to pick you up, alright? It’ll be safe- the bad guys moved on a long time ago. You can do it, loves! I believe in you!”

Torbjörn gripped the radio, furrowing his brow in agitation. “Now just a second, sweet lass, the bot’s in no condit-”

“Tracer, over and out!”

And that was all. Torbjörn shouted back into the device for a solid five minutes, begging her not to leave him with ‘these unreliable tin cans,’ but she had moved on.

Zenyatta opened his arms in a conciliatory gesture. They could figure out a plan: twenty-hour hours to travel six or so miles back to the bunker was doable even with his injuries if they set their minds to it. He was more concerned with how amenable Torbjörn might be to helping him- and there were many other fears, insidious doubts that hungered for vulnerable cracks to plant their seeds in, but he had to keep them buried beneath the surface until they were out of danger.

Torbjörn eyed him dismally. “I’m gonna have t’ carry you. Aren’t I.”

What to say to that? Zenyatta didn’t like the arrangement either. He disliked being a burden and, on a petty level, he would have preferred to avoid physical contact with the angry little veteran. He sighed- pure static to a human ear- and nodded.

And with a cheerfully contrary beep, Bastion knelt beside him and scooped him up into its arms. He flailed at the sudden movement but Bastion held him tight as though he was a baby animal.

“Carry?” it zwooped. “Help!”

Torbjörn shot them a look that could have curdled milk. “Always knew omnics would be the death of me one day or another. Come on, then. Let’s get a move on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm still going somewhere with zenyatta being worried all the time i know i know _i know_ it doesn't seem in character but he's gonna be talking about it,,, once he can talk again lmao


	6. Noise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Night falls on the Krasnoyarsk Front as Zenyatta, Torbjörn, and Bastion journey to regroup at the remains of the military base. Zenyatta takes a potshot at Torbjörn's head. A doctor nearly walks into a meat grinder. An unnamed omnic explodes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello naughty children it's P A I N time
> 
> important question i've been really tempted to make this less implied and more concrete genyatta, but it would still be background to the friendships. would that be ok with ppl?

The sun had hidden its face by the time they left the scene of the crash and began heading for the bunker. Zenyatta had consulted Bastion for its internal compass and then pointed the way in short order, and Torbjörn had found a game trail to make the travel easier.

Bastion carried Zenyatta and his leg, its avian friend resting in a clump of grass on its shoulder as it walked. It had spent the first five minutes of their journey humming to itself, but Torbjörn’s patience had run out quickly and he’d snapped at it to stop. With a dejected boop it had obeyed. Now the three traveled in near-silence punctuated only by footfalls and the occasional titter from Bastion’s bird- _Ga-ny-mede_ , it’d sounded out when asked for a name. It was a nice name with many meanings, Zenyatta thought, though he had no idea how or why Bastion had settled on a literary moniker. 

Once Bastion had ceased its singing, Torbjörn had maintained a surprisingly even mood. Perhaps he enjoyed time in the wilderness? Or maybe he was glad he could ignore his omnic company. Zenyatta hadn’t even found all the pieces to the puzzle of the mechanic’s mind let alone pieced them together, so he made no pretense toward understanding him.

Instead he let the rhythmic bouncing of Bastion’s gait lull him into a doze. It was no substitute for real hibernation, but he needed all the downtime he could get to recuperate and process the chaotic blur that comprised the past 48 hours. Napping still let him devote more resources to calibrating and cataloguing his thoughts and memories than he could do when properly awake.

It also led him to daydream. His mind fled the turmoil of the failed mission and flew on starry wings back to Gibraltar, to the station he had only just decided to call home. How was Genji holding up? With McCree still potentially weak from illness and Brigitte a neophyte like Zenyatta, responsibility would rest solely on his shoulders to maintain order in their base of operations.

Though Winston had chosen him because of his experience and combat skills, Zenyatta had to wonder if he should have mentioned- in private- Genji’s odd behaviour as of late. He could trace it with precision to one evening in Osaka when he’d left their hotel room and returned in the small hours of the morning, brushing off his mentor’s concerns and offering only that he was tired and needed some sleep.

Zenyatta suspected that in all likelihood he had made a covert trip to his childhood home in nearby Hanamura, but when pressed Genji had been uncharacteristically tight-lipped- _I wanted to see if Rikimaru was still open, the arcade has the same old games, the security’s not as tight as it used to be-_ trivial excuses that made no sense when just yesterday they had received Winston’s urgent recall transmission. 

Even now he wasn’t sure what had transpired in Hanamura and why it was still affecting his student. He’d intended to ask on the plane to Jerez Airport near Gibraltar, but he had spent the flight in numb shock instead, passing 14 hours wondering what he could have done better, if it was a mistake to leave the Shambali, if he should have been there in King’s Row. If maybe he could have taken the shot instead.

Torbjörn’s gruff voice coaxed him back from the troubling thoughts and back to full awareness. “I don’t care to hide how I feel about you omnic sorts, hear? But I’ve been thinkin’ and even if I can’t put my finger on why, I _have_ noticed yer helpin’ us. I’m not stupid, no matter what ya might’ve been thinkin’. Maybe you’ve got something up yer sleeve or maybe not. But ya did save me n’ Lena in the crash back there.”

He grunted, fixing his stoic glare on the deer path ahead of him. “Figured I oughta thank you. Don’t make me regret it.”

Even if there had been a way for Zenyatta to respond, the unexpected gratitude caught him wholly off-guard. Torbjörn shot him an appraising look over his shoulder and Zenyatta defaulted to the first non-verbal show of positivity that came to mind: a thumbs-up. Torbjörn raised a brow but said no more, and Zenyatta was glad he had gotten his point across. 

As they walked, the game trail faded and the terrain grew rougher. Craggy boulders and the remains of massive omnics littered the forest, reminding Zenyatta of the earlier view from the helicopter. Though the night was calm, he could feel the echoes of the earth when it had cried out in agony so many years ago. Just as he’d learned from Mondatta: a battlefield was also a graveyard.

When Torbjörn stopped to pick up scrap, though, he had no desire to intervene. It had been decades since these great warriors fought and died, and if their parts could be repurposed to provide protection for those still living, well… he hoped they could understand that. Torbjörn had proven his mastery in improvising weapons and they needed all the security they could muster when they were so deep in dangerous territory. 

It also meant more to carry, and when they came to a steep, rocky decline of ten or so feet, they were forced to stop. 

Torbjörn leaned out over the edge, one hand resting thoughtfully on his furry chin. “I can climb down, but you bots had better go first so I don’t have to climb back up ‘n carry you if you can’t do it alone.”

Zenyatta felt Bastion shift beneath him, jostling his stump as it zwooped uneasily. He did his best to ignore the pain shooting up and down his somatic nodes as it paced the ridge; when it wasn’t keeping a steady walk, its embrace wasn’t quite so steady or comfortable.

It settled its weight in its legs like it was about to jump, and Zenyatta braced himself, clutching its shoulders tightly. Perhaps it clued in to his apprehension, because instead it set him down with an apologetic beep and took only his leg with him as it leaped off the cliff and landed with a heavy, clanking _whump_ in the dirt below. 

“Figures,” Torbjörn muttered. He shambled over to Zenyatta, who watched him passively. “Looks like I’ve got t’ carry ya after all. Ready?”

Not particularly, but Zenyatta nodded anyway. They were running on limited time. 

Torbjörn slung the bundle of supplies over his shoulder and bent to pull Zenyatta’s torso up with one hand, the other taking a steady hold on his remaining leg, forearm supporting the knee. He was impressed that a human could lift all 300 odd pounds of him, more so when the difference in their sizes made their position so unwieldy. 

With a burdened huff Torbjörn set down the uneven escarpment, taking great care to make sure every footstep landed on stable rock. Zenyatta did his best not to impede him, though with his center of balance so severely impaired he had trouble just making sure he didn’t slip out of the man’s arms and down the slope like a metal ragdoll. 

Time passed like molasses as they descended, Zenyatta fighting to keep a steady hold on his bearer and his nerves, but Torbjörn came through and finally, after a millennium or so, they reached the bottom of the slope. Torbjörn set him down with a weary groan, taking care not to jostle him even after the exertion of carrying him down. 

Bastion turned in an excited circle and tweeted a hearty congratulations, its vocalizations reminiscent of a victory march or cavalry charge in old films. Zenyatta couldn’t help a relieved giggle.

Torbjörn watched wordlessly as Bastion picked the other omnic back up, and the moment soured as Zenyatta wondered if he’d done something wrong. Was a celebratory attitude an affront to him? The frustration from earlier crept back into Zenyatta as he found himself bewildered, like so many times before, at Torbjörn’s cryptic temper.

“Let’s get going,” he finally said. “We haven’t got forever.” Bastion complied, and as they set off into the forest again Zenyatta did his best to summon any reserves of patience he might have left. 

-

They had perhaps two hours of silent travel before the next interruption. It started with distant rustling and shaking, putting the omnics on edge while Torbjörn walked on obliviously. 

“Did you hear that?” Zenyatta beeped.

Bastion nodded. “Far. But loud.”

“Pipe down back there,” Torbjörn grunted. “I’m tryin’ to find another trail and you aren’t making it easier.”

The rustling graduated into crackling and crashing. To Zenyatta’s auditory systems- and Bastion’s by the look of it- they might as well have been surrounded by stampeding elephants. He let out a keening alarm, trying to get Torbjörn’s attention. He shot them a rude gesture without even looking their way. 

Metal and wood screamed and Bastion’s lights flashed yellow. Fear spiked up Zenyatta’s spine and he scrambled for a way to get the man’s attention. There- next to him in Bastion’s arms.

He grabbed his severed leg and launched it at Torbjörn, hitting him squarely in the back of the head.

_“What in the name of-”_

He never had a chance to finish his exclamation. The world around them slowed as one of the augmented Siberian bastions careened through the brush chasing a blue flicker.

Zenyatta stared into the creature’s lights as though it was frozen in time, a statue built from cold steel and single-minded malice. Up close it was a twisted nightmare of lean edges and gunpower: the turret fitted to its back fired innumerable rounds in the space of a second and its clawed limbs were outstretched towards its prey. Secondary fire from guns on its forearms posed an additional threat to the laughing, blinking quarry- _Lena,_ Zenyatta realized urgently, and the world came crashing back into focus.

The moment he pinpointed her location he imbued one of his orbs with peace and light and sent it to hover close by her shoulder. As she speeded past she gave him a cheeky wink and salute.

Before he had a chance to react he was falling. Above him Bastion twisted into its turret configuration, its lights gone a grim red. “Bad omnic. _Protect friends_.”

Then Zenyatta hit the ground and his sensors overloaded. He screamed as molten agony flooded out from his stump and pooled with the sharp throbbing in his chest, overflowing all capacity for thought and leaving him sobbing and immobile, curling in on himself. 

“I’ve got you!” a lilting, familiar voice cried. Soft golden light beckoned at the corners of his failing vision. He struggled to turn and see, his arms screaming, systems too overcome by pain to devote any resources to moving. 

Zenyatta let the light embrace him. Through the haze of confusion and quickly dulling pain his visual sensors traced the outline of a halo. Was this the Iris beckoning to him? He had hoped to spend more time helping Overwatch, or at least say goodbye to Genji, but if it was his time…

No. There were gloved hands on him, something cold and solid pressed to his chest. The agony dulled to an ache and then to fleeting contentment, the feeling of waking in the morning or sharing a knowing laugh with a friend.

Dr. Angela Ziegler held his faceplate in one hand and her caduceus staff in the other, her grip steady and her gaze compassionate. “You’re going to be okay, Zenyatta. I have your back now.”

A weak cough pulled itself from his throat as his vocal transmitter recalibrated. “Doctor-”

“Shush, you stay here with your friend for now.” She motioned toward Bastion above them, pelleting its corrupted kin with a barrage of armour-piercing bullets. “I have to take care of the others too. You aren’t fit for combat right now.”

His orb of harmony still danced around the beast-omnic on Tracer’s shoulder. If she was too slow, if it caught her in its terrible gnashing claws, she would _need_ him. He couldn’t just stand by helplessly when his friends were in danger.

“Thank you, truly,” he said, pulling himself up against Bastion and testing his restored voice. “But this is no time for rest.”

Angela’s professional smile faded to worry but before she could chastise him the woods shook with a meaty _thunk_ and another voice, less familiar, shouted for her. She mouthed a reproachful “be careful” before taking off into the fray.

Clanking next to Zenyatta startled him and he turned just in time to see Torbjörn emptying the scrap he’d collected and digging through it, assembling yet another turret. “I got ya,” he roared, a twinkle of gleeful madness in his eye. “My baby has your Bastion covered, so tell it t’ _pound that other one into the ground_.”

From the look of it, Bastion was already on the job. Zenyatta focused on keeping his orb near Tracer as she distracted the creature, always a step ahead and just out of reach. 

He caught sight of Mercy the same time the augmented bastion did. She flitted between trees towards a bloody mess at the foot of a birch but it intercepted her, screeching and swiping with claws that would have ripped her head from her shoulders if they’d been ten inches closer. 

It came at her again, Tracer’s persistent gunfire barely an afterthought. 

Zenyatta moved instinctively. He summoned all his remaining orbs and pelted them at the beast’s head, shoving it away from her.

Taking what might be her only opening to escape, Mercy flew back towards Bastion, face blank and haunted as she realized she had been staring into death’s eyes. 

“Dr. Ziegler!” someone insisted. For the first time Zenyatta caught sight of Zarya’s bright pink hair and noticed her kneeling next to the broken body at the foot of the tree. 

“I’m _trying_ ,” Mercy hissed through her teeth, and Zenyatta could see the way she seized up at her inability to help. Like she was panicking. Like him.

With Mercy out of reach the augmented bastion turned its attention back to the dogged fly buzzing around it. Tracer zipped in and out of its reach, still accompanied by the orb of harmony. Zenyatta honed his sights on her hand and the pulse bomb within it.

“That’s enough! This thing is going down,” she shouted, waving them away hysterically. “Take cover!”

That was all the warning they got before she blinked forward and stuck the bomb to the beast’s back. 

A second was all it took for branches and shrapnel to careen through the air as the omnic exploded. Two seconds and Zarya’s shields wore off, leaving her unscathed. Three seconds for Tracer to rewind back to her original position unharmed. Four for Bastion to repair the shards stuck in its armor and Mercy to close her cuts with her nanotechnology.

Five for Zenyatta to realize he was unharmed.

Six for him to register Torbjörn standing in front of him, a twisted shred of metal sticking out the back of his chest. 

The mechanic fell back onto him, eyes glazing over. A human couldn’t sustain such a terrible wound, Zenyatta knew. Realization crept over him like a winter chill.

Torbjörn was dying.

No, no, that wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t his time. Zenyatta clutched him, fighting for a solid grip as blood slipped between his fingers. He reached into himself, out of the woods, out of the destruction and into the eye of the universe itself. Transcendent arms unfurled and eased the shrapnel out of his chest as the warmth of the Iris stitched his broken body back together. Exhaustion dogged him but even as his body screamed for repose Zenyatta deepened his concentration. He slipped the metal out of his ally, his _friend_ , and let it fall to the ground as he knit the mangled flesh back together.

Gradually the light returned to Torbjörn’s eyes. Zenyatta trembled with the exertion of maintaining contact with the Iris for so long, an impressive feat even when he was rested and uninjured.

As soon as he saw Torbjörn crack an astounded grin, he let himself go and his consciousness spun into darkness. 

-

Hanoi was unbearably humid in the summer. Sweeping the streets felt like sitting at the bottom of a hot, stagnant pond, but it was the only way to earn their keep.

A battered old fan scrolled back and forth listlessly, doing little to alleviate the apartment’s muggy heat. From an end table near the door an old radio played out tinny 80s rock. 41Z was too worn-out to appreciate the classics; he lay face-down on a white mattress in the corner, his pistons aching after ten hours’ labour. With the Omnic Crisis as fierce as ever, his kind was lucky to find any form of employment let alone one that provided minimum wage or workers’ rights. 

Seated at a bare desk next to him, Mondatta gazed out the dusty window and watched the evening bustle on the street below. They worked the same hours but his curiosity, his wonder at the world around him, was boundless and insatiable. 41Z wondered how he could bear to be filled with such passion and love even for those who would kill him if they had a chance. 

Through the radio static a rolling beat signaled the beginning of a new song. It pulled Mondatta’s attention from the street and he began singing along under his breath. 

41Z rolled onto his elbows and cocked his head curiously, straining to hear. 

_“Protest is futile, nothing seems to get through, what’s to become of our world, who knows what to do?”_

With his hand he motioned- louder- but Mondatta nodded towards the window, mindful of causing a disruption. 41Z had always thought Mondatta had a brilliant singing voice, but with it came an infuriating sense of modesty. 

During an instrumental interlude he was provided an explanation. “The first song I ever listened to and my favourite to this day. Have you heard of The Police, little dove?”

41Z shook his head. “I have… never felt a desire to listen to music.”

Mondatta pressed the side of his head to the radio, graceful fingers tuning the knobs for better reception. “Because it’s for humans?”

“Because…” 41Z turned away sullenly, unable to maintain a charade when he had been working all day. His systems were close to overheating, his body ached, and he had no energy for mind games. “Yes.”

“Try everything once,” Mondatta urged him as he found the perfect frequency and leaned back in his rickety plastic chair. “Why should entertainment be divided for human and omnic consumption? Our souls receive art with the same jubilation theirs do.”

41Z sat up and hauled himself to his feet. He wasn’t in the mood to be compared to humans- Mondatta might have convinced him to respect them, but if he thought to goad him into liking them, he had another thing coming.

“I will admit,” Mondatta spoke as though 41Z was still receptive to his proverbs and preaching, “Music had a large part in my decision to change my name. I don’t suppose you know the name of this album?”

41Z trudged to the bookshelf opposite his mattress, deigning not to humour him. “I’m going to read now.”

Mondatta forged on unperturbed. “It was a moment of youthful folly. Promise you won’t judge?”

“Mmm,” 41Z muttered, picking out a ratty old travel magazine. 

“The song is Driven to Tears from the album _Zenyatta Mondatta_.”

Orange light glinted off 41Z’s head as he leveled his gaze slowly at his mentor. “I won’t judge.”

The evening sweltered as 41Z buried his face in the magazine, hiding behind white villas and blue skies. If he hadn’t been overheating before, he was now. Was it obvious to Mondatta? Because it sure was obvious to him that his internal fans were drowning out the one in their room.

So many times over the last few months Mondatta had reassured him that he was under no pressure to find his own name, that if one ever did come to him he would know. He peered up from the pages to see that aggravatingly passive white faceplate staring down at him.

“41Z? Have I troubled you in some way?”

The young omnic set the magazine on the floor but kept his gaze safely averted. “Can I. Is it okay if. Would you let me call myself Zenyatta?”

Mondatta knelt down next to him and took his hands. “Of course, dear heart. You needn’t even ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't find any deets on Hanamura as a real place so I assumed it only exists in the Overwatch world and decided it was close to Osaka. 
> 
> Mondatta likes the oldies.
> 
> As usual I've only done some cursory edits and I'm very tired so I might come back and fix it up a bit tmw


	7. Unity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zenyatta wakes to find the mission has ended without him and the political gears have been set in motion to determine Overwatch's future. Torbjörn surprises himself. Mercy needs a nap.

Zenyatta woke to find himself surrounded by muted greys and yellows. 

The first thought that came to mind was that this was quite definitely not the forest he had lost consciousness in. He lay on a bed in a small room, and that meant he was back in civilization, for better or worse.

He must have been out a long time; it was around twenty hours to get to the bunker and then another few to fly him to wherever he was now. It was reassuring that he was in one piece-- besides his leg-- and hadn’t been restrained.

As he glanced at the barred window behind him, however, he suspected his situation wasn’t entirely benign. Best to get a good handle on his surroundings and see if he could figure out where he was.

Sitting gingerly, Zenyatta leaned over to peer out the window. Grey skies hung low over a series of squat buildings- a military base by the look of it, and the numerous flags trembling in a weak breeze told him he was still in Russia. Outside of the camp he could make out rolling green hills dotted with forest and the misty silhouette of a city in the distance. 

As for the room, he couldn’t say he appreciated the sickly yellow walls or blank concrete floor, but it was nice to find himself indoors nevertheless. Zenyatta felt at home in any natural setting but even so he enjoyed the comfort of a dry respite from the elements now and again. 

The bed below him was lumpy and firm but not exceptionally uncomfortable. A desk and chair were squeezed next to the bed and he was relieved to see his orbs laid neatly on the desk’s wooden surface. 

In one corner of the room he spied a tiny white video camera. Not surprising, really, but Zenyatta had nothing to hide and no reason to interact with it, so he ignored it. He turned away from the window to swing his leg over the edge of the mattress and peer at the door. Nondescript steel. Unlocked. 

Interesting. 

It was sorely tempting to test his limits and see if he might be able to maintain his balance and float around to explore, but with all that had happened since they left Gibraltar Zenyatta suspected was more important to scrutinize his systems than his surroundings. He hadn’t panicked since waking despite finding himself in potentially hostile surroundings, and that was a good sign. It meant he’d rested long enough to calibrate his thoughts and bury the anxiety that he thought he had vanquished years ago. 

Though he was managing for now, he suspected his brothers and sisters had been right after all. It was impossible to truly rid himself of the inescapable, unpredictable glitch in his mind. _Make peace with it,_ Mondatta had urged him. _This isn’t a flaw in your programming. For better or worse, your anxiety is part of who you are. You must adapt and live alongside it._

Easy for him to say when he’d never worried once in his life, Zenyatta thought bitterly.

At least it was possible to function normally when he was well-rested. The omnic shut off his visual sensors and turned inward, deciding that he might as well take the time to meditate and make sure he was well and truly recovered from the troubles he’d faced on the Front. 

With practiced ease he sank into placid silence, the rest of the world melting away as the warm embrace of the Iris came hazily into view of his mind’s eye. He swam toward it eagerly through a lake of molten gold. It had been too long since he had properly immersed himself in the tranquil peace of the bright halo; while he did pass into the Iris when using Transcendence, it was typically done through active effort. Meditation, on the other hand, came quietly and naturally. 

But it never lasted forever. A click in the direction of the door alerted him to a visitor and after taking a moment to ground himself in physical reality again he restarted his visual processors and nodded a greeting to the young man standing stiffly at the room’s entrance. 

He spoke in Russian. This provided no barrier to Zenyatta; since production he’d been equipped to speak and understand any language with at least a few million speakers. 

“Hello. I’ve been tasked with informing you that you and your compatriots are being held in a secure facility while our military and governmental authorities assess your situation. As I’m sure you’re aware, your activity at the Krasnoyarsk Front has come into direct conflict with Clause A of Section 45 of the Petras Act as mandated by the United Nations.”

Zenyatta hadn’t the slightest idea what Clause A of Section 45 prohibited, but he understood perfectly well what the Petras Act was. “Are we under arrest?”

“Functionally, yes, regardless of the legal jargon tossed around by the politicians. For the time being you’re all to be contained as potential threats to global peace.” The young soldier broke his cool, professional gaze and shuffled his feet uneasily. “I have no reason to trust you, omnic. Let me make that clear. But… the efforts of Agent Reinhardt are the only reason my wife is alive right now. She was one of the few to escape the bunker after he shielded her from an explosion. If summoned, she and I will speak in favour of legalizing Overwatch activity again. Even if they do employ omnics in their ranks.”

“And for that you have my thanks,” Zenyatta responded diplomatically. “Forgive my curiosity, but are we permitted to travel beyond our rooms? I would like to visit the other agents.”

The soldier raised a leery brow at the stump where his left leg had been disconnected. “Yes, but only on this storey. This is a secure military base- any attempts to leave the floor will be met with stiff resistance and we are permitted to use force if necessary. We’ve taken the initiative to store your weapons in an undisclosed location, but we’re prepared to return them when the situation has been sorted out. You’re all to be guided to the mess hall on the first floor for meals in the morning and evening, but otherwise your business is your own.”

Mostly. Zenyatta recalled the video camera but such knowledge was best kept to himself for the time being. It would be good to make some sort of offering as a sign of goodwill, but if he proclaimed his awareness it could end up coming back to pinch his wires, and not in a good way. 

His visual sensors caught the glint of his orbs, and an idea sprouted in his mind. 

Just as the soldier turned to leave he shuffled over to the corner of the bed and tapped the desk. “Excuse me, but you said our weapons were confiscated, did you not?”

The man glanced back at him with narrowed eyes. “Yes.”

Doing his best to look non-threatening- which he suspected wasn’t difficult when he only had one leg- Zenyatta picked up one of the orbs. “These are my weapons. In the spirit of fairness and honesty, please pass them along to your commanding officer for me.”

His offer earned him a look of confusion from the soldier, but after a moment he stepped forward to gather them up in his arms. “Thank you,” he said simply, and left without another word.

Silence returned to the room. Zenyatta reconsidered his options: stay where he was and meditate, try to leave and find the others, or perhaps fall back asleep to further optimize his systems.

Meditation, perhaps; exploring seemed like more trouble than it was worth and he suspected sleep was unneeded. Nothing was tugging at his subconscious or unlatching the cage he’d built around his anxiety. The only worry that crept into his mind was Genji’s wellbeing. They were used to spending time apart, but not under such tense or unfamiliar circumstances. By now he’d probably know of the mission’s disastrous failure, and Brigitte and McCree would in all likelihood have to physically hold him down to stop him from running off to help. 

Genji was capable of serenity when he put his mind to it but he was also the most intensely _alive_ person Zenyatta had ever met. An insatiable fire burned within him, propelling him forward with great purpose- to protect others, to make the world a better place, to strive for even greater self-improvement. Sometimes Zenyatta wondered if his student had surpassed him. 

Another knock. Not the soldier’s two orderly taps but a series of chaotic bangs. 

“Come in,” Zenyatta sighed, expecting trouble.

Torbjörn entered, and whether or not he would prove to be trouble remained to be seen. 

“Can I sit.”

An unusual request, but Zenyatta nodded and slipped off the bed. He winced as he hit the floor a little too hard but shook it off and patted the sheets.

Torbjörn sat uncomfortably, crossing his legs. Perhaps to avoid showing Zenyatta that his feet couldn’t reach the floor, but he allowed the man his insecurities. Everyone had them.

“I’ve got a lot t’ say and not a lot of words t’ say it,” he grumbled, staring out the window as rain started to pelt the glass. “I know Shimada gossiped to you about all of us. But he never knew much about me. I’m not one to chit-chat.”

A pause, as though he expected a response. Zenyatta had little to say, but he summoned one nevertheless. “He always had a good word for any agent I asked about.”

It seemed to satisfy him. “I’m just thinking I probably owe you an explanation. You know I fought in the first Omnic Crisis.”

“I’ve been told.”

“You see things, and you lose people. Now, you n’ Shimada. You’re close. Right.”

Zenyatta hesitated. “Yes.”

“So you know what it’s like for someone to be your world. For them t’ be the sun in your sky and the earth under yerr feet. Someone you’d die for.”

This time the omnic spoke with conviction, though a sinking feeling was growing in the pit of his core. “I do. Absolutely.”

Torbjörn stared out the window distantly, as though it was a portal to another time and place. “Imagine that person bein’ ripped away from you.”

Zenyatta felt as though the floor had dropped away below him. Suddenly it was no longer Genji he saw in his mind’s eye.

The mechanic went on. “Imagine bein’ responsible for it, even when everyone is telling you that it wasn’t yer fault, that you couldn’t have done anything.”

Until that point their conversation had been punctuated only by the pattering of rain against the window but now Zenyatta’s internal fans were buzzing loudly, disrupting them as he struggled to avoid overheating. “I am more familiar with such feelings than you might think.”

“It changes you.” Torbjörn didn’t heckle him or even pry for more information. He kept his gaze safely averted. 

That was fine with Zenyatta; he didn’t know if he could handle speaking face-to-face right now either. He could only manage a solemn nod; his mind was a flurry as his body put an increasingly high priority on monitoring the all-too-physical reactions to his grief. He wanted to _scream_ \-- to lie down and curl up and wait for the Iris to take him, and then maybe, just maybe, they could be together again--

“Hey.” Something nudged his shoulder and he turned wearily to see Torbjörn peering down at him. 

“I was just startin’ to think you weren’t so bad,” he said with the ghost of a smile in his voice. “Don’t go making a fool of me now.”

Zenyatta coughed out a weak gurgle that barely passed as a laugh. “I won’t.”

The distraction sent his harmful thoughts grinding to a halt, and he didn’t let himself return to them. It was good to grieve, and he would need to allow himself time for that. Losing Mondatta hurt more than anything he’d ever known but he would honour his memory when the trials of this catastrophic mission were over. He’d find a way to move on. He had to.

“I do have a bit of news ya might not like to hear,” Torbjörn admitted, pulling him from his thoughts again. “That Bastion of yours carried you back to the bunker for us but it ran off when the helicopter came to pick us up.”

“That’s a shame,” Zenyatta murmured. Another friend he hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to. “I know you disliked it, but it was kind-hearted. Its instincts to defend us may well have saved our lives in the fight with the augmented unit.”

Torbjörn shrugged with one shoulder and scratched his back with his other arm. “Don’t know if instinct is the right word. Programming, more like. But whatever reason it had fer taking our side, I’m glad it did. Maybe it’s like you and found some reason for taking us humans’ side.”

Zenyatta sat up straighter and corrected him gently. “I claim no side in the human-omnic conflict. I only want peace, especially if it can be achieved without the use of violence. Such are the beliefs of any Shambali monk; I may no longer claim membership in the order but we still share many ideals.”

“Technicalities!” Torbjörn cried in a tone that Zenyatta was beginning to think of as ‘playfully argumentative.’ “You’ve convinced me that some omnics really do want to get on well with humans, but I _know_ it’ll always be for selfish reason at the end of th’ day. What more do you want from me, you blasted bot?”

Zenyatta leaned back against the bedframe and poked his knee cheekily. “And I accept that some humans may truly desire a positive relationship with omnics. But only for an ultimately selfish reason. How can you ask any more of me, you terrible, short-sighted man?”

He was prepared to dive for cover when Torbjörn came after him but he was too slow, and ended up in a loose headlock. “I’ll disassemble you and send you to th’ junkyard! Mark my words!”

A gentle knock at the door had them scrambling into more professional positions. “Come in,” Zenyatta blurted. 

“Pardon me, was I interrupting- oh, hello, Torbjörn. I didn’t expect to see you here,” Angela admitted, brows knitted and lips taut as though she was ready to break up a fight. She had traded her combat uniform for an oversized knit sweater and navy leggings. “Is everything alright?”

“Just catchin’ up. Mission debrief and all that fancy stuff, or somethin’ like that,” Torbjörn replied, waving away her worry. The stress remained evident on her face and Zenyatta wondered when she’d last slept. 

“If you say so. I came to see if you’d woken, Zenyatta.” She bowed her head courteously. “You were deactivated for more than twenty-four hours, and I’ve been told any longer than ten hours is abnormal for an omnic and may indicate high levels of physical and mental exhaustion.”

Zenyatta picked himself up and crawled with some difficulty into the desk chair. “I appreciate your concern, Dr. Ziegler. Just as Genji said, you do a marvelous job of looking after your patients even after you’ve healed their injuries. I assure you, though, all is well. I simply needed an extended period of time to process and organize my thoughts and memories.” 

“That’s good to hear. But next time, please stop fighting when I tell you to,” Angela scolded him. “You pushed yourself too far. It’s not healthy.”

Zenyatta wasn’t sure how fair that assessment was, since he was better aware of his own limits than she was and had chosen to ignore them in favour of saving her life. But he couldn’t hold it against her, not when she was just trying to keep them all in good health.

“Dr. Ziegler,” he offered with an open, conciliatory hand. “I shall act with more caution next time on the condition that you get some sleep. Trust me when I say that being able to heal another’s wounds does not make you an automaton with no need for rest.”

He wasn’t sure what it was that he’d said, but all the tension left her body and she suddenly looked much smaller. “If everybody is doing alright, then perhaps…”

Torbjörn slipped off the bed with a backwards glance at Zenyatta-- did he just mouth _‘thanks’_?-- and headed over to stand next to her, motioning at the door. “Come on, Angie. The bot’s right. Just get some sleep and I’ll bring something back up after supper.”

Conversing quietly, the two left him to his thoughts again, shutting the door behind them with a click. Zenyatta traced the whorls in the desk’s polished wood and wondered if perhaps there was a place for him in Overwatch after all. 

If Overwatch survived the next week, that was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayy lmao genyatta
> 
> cat's out of the bag, zenyatta has an anxiety disorder bc i love projecting into my favourite characters even when they look like the calmest person in the world


	8. Trial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zenyatta juggles politics and personal fears, but he's not much of a juggler. Zarya has opinions. Reinhardt is a good and beautiful man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my friend drew some fanart for last chapter and im sobbing [check it out its a+](http://gold-storm.tumblr.com/post/149100611419/dont-worry-mercy-theyre-just-messing-around)
> 
> also warning for??? potentially upsetting imagery this chapter i guess?? zenyatta doesnt take pain too well

Rather than waste his energy worrying where it would do no good, Zenyatta had decided to spend the afternoon in meditation. Had he tried such a distraction back on the Front he knew he would have failed, but sleep did wonders for his systems and he could reliably lead his mind from troubled shadows when he had the energy.

Time passed beyond his notice. Basking in the glow of the Iris was the only time he truly felt at home since he’d left the Shambali to travel the world. It was like a friend’s knowing smile, the warmth of the summer sun, a child’s laughter. Like a desert island, serene and untouchable and _safe._

But interruptions were inevitable, especially when Zenyatta lost track of the world outside his mind. A knock on his door sent bright alerts shooting up and down the wiring in his chest but he quickly soothed the fretful protocols. “Yes? Come in.”

He’d expected one of the soldiers, or perhaps Torbjörn again. But instead it was Reinhardt, grinning widely and fighting to fit his massive frame through the door. Zenyatta noted the purple bruises on his face and arms and what looked like the outline of a bandage under his inevitably undersized t-shirt. The battle at the bunker had been hard on him, but he looked energetic as ever. 

“Hello, my little omnic friend!” he bellowed. “We have been summoned to the mess hall. Angela has informed me of your handicap, so I’ve come to carry you!” 

Zenyatta was still unsure of his ability to float with his balance compromised, so he was glad for the offer. “Thank you. I apologize for the burden.”

Reinhardt waved away the comment. “If we don’t help those who can’t help themselves then what do we stand for? I am happy to carry you until you can carry yourself.” 

He came to the edge of the bed and knelt, scooping Zenyatta into his arms more gently than he would have expected. His grasp was steady and secure, and Zenyatta wondered if he was used to holding animals or children. With the celebrity status of many Overwatch members, it wouldn’t be all that surprising. 

They left Zenyatta’s room for the hallway outside, painted in the same uncomfortable yellow and lined with identical doors. Most of the mission force was already assembled and accompanied by a small escort of local soldiers. The men and women seemed friendly, even awed by the agents around them, but the mood soured and the gazes quickly averted when they saw Zenyatta. 

That was fine. They had every reason to distrust omnics. He only wished he could have had time to speak with them all, to learn the stories of their lives, perhaps to instill just a shred of understanding in them.

Perhaps one day. But not when the world was lurching dangerously on the precipice of war and chaos. 

Down a stairwell and through another corridor was the mess hall, larger than Gibraltar’s but simple and unadorned. Zenyatta found himself sat down at a table as the rest of the squad left to get food from the kitchen next door. They returned one by one: Lena first, and then Angela, Reinhardt, Torbjörn, and finally Winston. 

None of them hesitated as they returned to the mess hall. They all made a beeline for Zenyatta, assembling around him at a single table. It reminded him of the camaraderie he had known at the Shambali monastery, a kinship built from shared adversity and solemn faith. But at the same time there was something else to this, a kind of unconditional intimacy that he had only ever experienced twice before and only on an individual basis. A part of him wondered if he could ever acclimatize to having such a large family. It felt selfish, somehow, to have gained the devotion of these people without even proving his worth to them. 

Before his doubts could plague him further he was distracted by a hollow clinking and he glanced at Winston, tapping a plastic cup with his fork. It wasn’t as loud as it would have been with glass and it took a moment for some of the team’s more boisterous members to come to attention.

When the table was silent he spoke. “We’ve got a lot to catch up on,” he admitted. “I know you’re all exhausted but everyone needs to be up-to-date with current affairs. Here’s what we know: the Russian government is keeping us here on orders from the United Nations, which intends to extradite us to a temporary location in Geneva as soon as they find proper accommodations. Despite how badly the mission went, it seems like we have a lot of support from Russia, and it’s likely that they’ll continue to support Overwatch activity. Now, beyond that, I was made aware a few hours ago that our agents in Gibraltar have already been detained.”

Zenyatta stirred. “Peacefully?”

“Peacefully,” Winston reassured him with what Zenyatta couldn’t help but feel was a knowing look. “They went willingly. I’m told they were concerned at our lack of contact and wanted to know if we were safe. We’ll be meeting them in Geneva soon, for better or worse. Potentially as soon as tomorrow, according to some of the officers I was chatting with. The circumstances might not be ideal but the people here are really a lovely bunch.”

Although they might not have liked Zenyatta, he was still inclined to agree. He was about to say as much when pink flashed in the corner of his vision and he turned to see Junior Sergeant Zaryanova leaving the kitchen and approaching them. One of her arms was in a sling.

“ _Privet,_ ” she greeted them stiffly, sitting next to Winston. Zenyatta’s audio receptors picked up on the tension on her voice at the same time his visual processors read the smile on her face and the subtle clench of her jaw. She was in pain. 

Reinhardt leaned over to clap her on the back and Zenyatta winced internally, but she remained stoic as she set down a plate with kotlety and braised cabbage. “Am I interrupting?”

“No, not at all,” Winston responded, followed with a nod from Angela and a thumbs-up from Lena. “We were just discussing our plans for the next few days.”

“I have been asked to act as emissary to Overwatch,” she explained in patchy English. “It is all I can do while military tribunal assesses my condition. I was insubordinate when I summoned your team. I am suspended from duty.”

Winston shook his head. “I’m sorry that asking for our assistance ended up causing so many problems. Is there any news from the Front? It would be nice to know if we at least slowed the onslaught…”

Zarya’s fist clenched around her fork. “The casualties are heavy. Last month was fifteen thousand. This week is already five thousand more. Many civilians are dying.”

The easy chatter around the table faded as side conversations petered out uncomfortably. Reinhardt coughed. Lena’s plate screeched as she tried to spear a pea. 

Zarya turned angry green eyes on Zenyatta and he steeled himself for what he knew was coming. “United Nations should dismiss the Petras Act. Russia will gladly accept help in destroying omnic threat.”

Zenyatta held her gaze steadily. “When the politics are sorted out we will lend all the assistance we can muster.”

Something in Zarya went off like a firecracker and she turned to Winston. “Why do you let this machine sit at your table? It is probably on their side-”

“Shut yer gab,” Torbjörn barked, and all eyes leveled on him. “He might be a bot, but he’s _our_ bot. Understand?”

Zarya glared at Torbjörn as though he had insulted a member of her family or kicked her pet dog. “ _Da._ ”

Tension was nearly palpable in the air as the confrontation left the group to pick up the shattered pieces of their previous conversations. Zenyatta felt tugging on a cluster of somatic nodes in his fingers and glanced down to see Lena squeezing his hand. “You okay, love?”

“Yes. Her hatred is daunting, but it comes from a place of deeply imbedded trauma. More than anything,” Zenyatta murmured, “I was surprised that Torbjörn came to my defense.”

“Aw, he’s got a good heart,” she promised, leaning over to give him a one-armed hug as though they had been friends for years. “Grouchy guy but it’s part of his charm once you get to know him. I’m actually surprised how fast he’s warmed up to you! With you being, you know.”

“An omnic,” Zenyatta finished for her. “Yes, I’m aware of his history with my kind. The progress he’s made in tackling his prejudice is impressive, and I’m thankful that I have his support, conditional as it may end up being.”

Lena chirruped and patted his shoulder. “We’ve all got your back at the end of the day, love. That’s what family is for.”

As the conversation slowed to a simmer they began taking their trays and empty plates back to the kitchen. Before long Reinhardt stood, claiming that he was going to turn in for the night and asking if Zenyatta was ready to go.

He was, and in fact he was eager for some time to reflect on Winston’s news, so he agreed to head back upstairs. Torbjörn left the table shortly thereafter and fell in step as best he could given the almost three foot difference between him and Reinhardt. A single guard walked silently behind them.

They had reached the stairwell before the mechanic spoke. “How would ya feel about getting yer leg back, bot?”

“I wasn’t aware that it was a possibility,” Zenyatta replied with piqued interest. “Did you take it with you when we were airlifted?”

“Figured I oughta,” Torbjörn responded with a nonchalant shrug. Reinhardt kept quiet, watching them with thinly-veiled curiosity.

Zenyatta hummed pensively. “ I would certainly like to regain my mobility if you have the tools to perform the operation.”

“Now don’t go callin’ it an _operation,_ ” Torbjörn muttered. “I’m no Angie. But the soldiers here let me borrow some tools to work on it and I think it’s as good as it’s going to get. Your Bastion did a half-decent job repairing it. For a bot.”

There it was again, that good-natured needling. But Zenyatta wasn’t inclined to engage him this time, not when it was just beginning to dawn on him that reattaching his leg entailed a good deal of hardship. The somatic nodes in his stump had desensitized some since he’d gone so long without a leg, but any prolonged contact with them or the nearby wiring would hurt. A lot. And he couldn’t just put his systems into rest mode, not when he needed to be conscious to make sure it was being fitted correctly.

Icy fear had started creeping into his head by the time they reached Torbjörn’s room at the end of the hall. It was identical to Zenyatta’s but far more lived-in: the bed was messy, the chair was in the middle of the room, and the desk was littered with tools and his own leg, now repaired and good as new. 

After setting his injured charge carefully in the chair Reinhardt sat down heavily on the concrete floor, eyeing them as though he thought they needed supervision. Though Zenyatta trusted Torbjörn fully with the operation, especially given all they’d been through in the past few days, he was glad nevertheless for the emotional support that Reinhardt brought with his solid, reassuring presence. 

Torbjörn fetched the leg and his tools from the table. Wordlessly he took a measuring tape to the hollow where Zenyatta’s leg had previously been attached, making sure everything was in order before taking a handful of the frayed wires still attached to him.

Shock jolted up from his stump into his parietal centre and he spasmed, jerking away from the mechanic’s grip and stumbling right out of the chair. 

He recovered himself somewhat, trying to lift the sensitive stump off the ground. “Don’t. Do that please.” 

“Do you want your leg back or not?” Torbjörn snapped. “Don’t jump around like that, you’re going to mess yourself up even worse!”

Zenyatta edged further out of reach and crossed his arms. “I would prefer it if you bought me dinner before fussing with my wires,” he joked shakily. 

Torbjörn let out a groan of long-suffering exasperation, and Zenyatta got the feeling that despite his background he didn’t entirely understand how sensitive some omnics’ wiring was. “Interestin’ way of delaying the inevitable. Come on, bot, I’ve spent decades workin’ on machinery like yours so don’t you tell me you’re gettin’ nervous.”

“Agreed!” Reinhardt chimed in. “You are in good hands!”

Even if they didn’t understand where Zenyatta’s discomfort came from, they did have a point. Regardless of how he felt about the contact, it had to be done to get his body in working order. Torbjörn wouldn’t get far in reattaching his leg if the wires in his pelvis were left in their sorry condition. 

“Alright,” the monk sighed, inching back over to sit between the two. He leaned heavily on Reinhardt to compensate for his skewed balance. “But I must warn you that the process will be very painful for me and I may need to take time to compose myself.”

“Is that why you’re nervous?” Reinhardt asked, thick brows furrowed in concern. “Perhaps what you need is distraction? I have many tales of glorious battles!”

“I don’t think he cares,” Torbjörn muttered as he assembled his equipment. Then, to Zenyatta, “You can tough it out, bot. You didn’t make it this far for a welder and a pair of pliers to conquer you.”

Zenyatta turned away and looked out the window, hoping he might be able to separate his mind from his body as he sometimes did during meditation. He didn’t want to see his own inexorable descent into agony; wouldn’t it be better to imagine he was back in Nepal with the sun smiling down upon him and birdsong tickling his auditory processors? Or perhaps back in Vietnam, fans buzzing during those hazy summer days in Hanoi? Maybe more recent accommodations like Osaka or Gibraltar- 

_Stabbing thorns curling in the ghost of his leg, blooming, seeping red-hot into his core._

Waking in the morning to the watercolors of sunrise, to soft smiles and sweet kisses-

_Metal teeth gnawing and gnashing and dismembering him from the inside. Agony eating him alive._

A mechanical screech wrenched itself from Zenyatta’s throat as he began to sob. Large hands held his head, promising him it would be alright, telling him he was strong, so strong, but he wanted to curl up and die, he wasn’t strong or brave, he was weak and it hurt it hurt _it hurt, please make it stop!_

The pain settled white-hot and inescapable in his wires as though moulding itself into bone, into every fiber of his body. He scrambled to pull away, to find the peace that came so easily during meditation, to leave his body to its suffering. But the searing pain blackened to tar and sucked him back as though pulling him into the lascivious caress of a thousand roving hands. 

Tortured screams throbbed through his head and only belatedly did he realize they were his own. Frantically he honed in on the sound, desperate for any stimulus that wasn’t agonizing. The vibrations of his wailing were jerky, unpredictable, but he clung to them like a mantra nevertheless.

By the time Zenyatta could hear his thoughts over his own screaming, it was impossible to tell if the tactic worked or if the operation was over. The roiling torment calmed slowly to a simmer and finally the omnic found himself in a clear, placid pool that was devoid of any sensation. 

He dared to turn his visual processors on.

The tiny room was packed with every member of the Overwatch task force, their faces ranging from concerned to horrified. A quick glance over his shoulder told him the hallway was crowded by local soldiers hoping to sneak a look at the source of the terrible noise.

Torbjörn knelt next to him, sweat beading his brow. He seemed almost as disoriented as Zenyatta, his gaze flickering between his tools and the leg that he had reattached so expertly. 

The attention made Zenyatta wonder if they were waiting for him to say something. They would find themselves disappointed; he didn’t particularly feel like indulging their voyeuristic curiosity, and chose instead to roll to his side and test his leg under an imaginary veil of privacy made believable by his exhausted delirium.

The pistons were in working order. The wires were in the right places. Torbjörn had done a phenomenal job making such complex machinery work as well as it had before. 

All was well with his body but his mind sorely needed a rest. 

“Not used t’ workin’ on machines that feel pain,” Torbjörn muttered, and Zenyatta knew that was the closest the mechanic would come to apologizing. 

He nodded numbly. “Thank… you.” The words came out slurred and staticky, but the uncomfortable shrug they earned told him he’d managed to get the message across. 

Something nudged his back and he realized belatedly that he was still curled in Reinhardt’s grasp. “Shall I carry you one last time, _mein Kollege_?”

Zenyatta coughed, trying to clear his voice of its wavering frequencies. “I would appreciate it, if you don’t mind.” 

Then he was being lifted, carried from the team’s worried scrutiny and into the hall. The knight held him in one hand and shooed away the gathered soldiers with the other. “Come now, give him some space! The poor thing is tired!”

The strangers shuffled aside to make way for Reinhardt’s considerable mass, and Zenyatta was glad for the extra space. The last thing he needed right now was to be crowded or jostled.

After a short trip down the hall he was finally returned to his room, where Reinhardt set him down gently on his bed and patted the side of his head. “You are so very strong for such a small omnic,” he said fondly. “It is an honour to have you in Overwatch.”

Zenyatta didn’t hear him. He had already fallen asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry for hurting the Beautiful Mechanical Boy
> 
> no im not
> 
> also torbjörn is probably going to wake up at 2am in a cold sweat realizing he accidentally groped a robot and hes never going to be the same


	9. Limbo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions rise and tempers begin to appear, but a welcome beckoning sends Zenyatta and his squadmates heading towards a sense of resolution. Zenyatta is happy to find his leg in perfect working order. Lena wears embarrassing pajamas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long my brain decided to take me through Dissociation Hell Week
> 
> chapters might be a bit slower starting on the 7th, at which point i'll be juggling my internship with a full course load. on the other hand long morning lectures also make for great opportunities to write fanfiction, so we'll see lmao

Despite the pain he had gone through the previous evening, Zenyatta had no trouble waking just after sunrise. He let himself lie in bed as his processors kicked into drive; his internal chronometer told him it was just past six in the morning and though he wasn’t familiar with how this military base ran, he suspected there would be ample time for morning meditation. 

He sat up gingerly, peering out of the barred window at the base and the countryside beyond. Dawn’s warm hues saturated the landscape in rose and gold and Zenyatta found himself hit by an unexpected pining for the slopes of Nepal. On the one hand, if the politics worked out and he was made a formal member of Overwatch, he would have many more opportunities to travel the world and admire the natural beauty in every location he visited. But on the other hand, he could end up far too embroiled in action and conflict to properly appreciate the world around him. He’d have to take cares to avoid such a tragedy.

Zenyatta shifted slowly, crossing his legs and settling his feet on his thighs. There was no protest from his recently-reattached leg; the process may have been long and painful but Torbjörn had taken great cares to make sure his work was thorough. He would have to find him today and thank him properly, now that he was in proper possession of his mental faculties.

It felt like no time at all before he found himself bathed in the light of the Iris. It sang to him today, a deep, thrumming cadence that infused his body and mind with tranquility and self-confidence. Everything would be alright, it reminded him. The doubts that curled inside him like vipers wouldn’t last forever, and would ultimately wither and die if overcome with the love and compassion he felt so deeply for the world around him.

Fear, grief, uncertainty- all would come to pass like whispers on the wind if he let go of them. It wasn’t as easy as commanding his worries to disappear, but acknowledging their impermanence and turning his focus to more constructive thoughts was always a good first step. 

By the time his chronometer signalled seven o’clock, Zenyatta was ready to start his day. He stretched his legs out from under him; a good first order of business would be making sure, just one last time, that everything was in place. He set his weight down on the concrete floor, shifting from foot to foot and finding no instability or weakness. 

Drawing energy from within he lifted himself off the floor and found that he no longer had any trouble floating as was his habit before the crash. Balance aside, he hadn’t expected mere injuries to shake his confidence so deeply; for a moment he recalled again the warnings of the other Shambali monks, the murmurs, the concern. 

Recognizing the thought for the poison it was, Zenyatta dropped it and focused his attention on floating out of his room instead. He _had_ been ready. It hadn’t been a mistake to leave.

The hallway was empty, marked only by the metal doors, a series of fluorescent lights on the ceiling, and a barred window at the end that was identical to the one in Zenyatta’s room. He hovered over to the window and peered outside to find that this one presented a more direct view of the countryside, of farmland and copses of trees. It could have been a scene from a painting, but the peace wouldn’t last forever if things continued the way they were going. Krasnoyarsk was thousands of miles away but Zenyatta knew all too well the horrible, mindless violence with which the army of omnics would plough through the countryside. He’d seen it. He’d _been_ it.

And he couldn’t let that kind of destruction happen again. Zenyatta realized that since he’d arrived in the base there hadn’t yet been a chance to inform the others of the God Program, and vowed to change that immediately. He turned and floated back down the hall, wondering which room was Winston’s.

None of the nondescript metal doors had any kind of label, nothing to tell him who was residing within, so he’d have to make a wild guess. He knocked gently on one of the doors next to his own room.

The immediate shuffle inside told him the occupant was already awake. Just moments later the door opened to reveal Lena sporting a toothy smile and a bland white tank top that was at odds with the pink duckies on her pajama shorts. “G’morning, Zenyatta! How’s your leg?”

Her cheer proved immediately contagious. Zenyatta leaned his upper half against the wall outside the door as she pattered into the hall. “Working better than before, if possible,” he responded. “Well worth last night’s trouble. I hope my noise didn’t wake anybody.”

“Aw, not likely, and even if it did, I’m just glad to see you back in working order!” Lena exclaimed. “Sorry we all ended up ogling… we wanted to make sure you came out alright. Guess it ended up looking a tad impolite.”

Zenyatta shook his head. “Worry not. I reacted out of uncertainty at the time but in hindsight, I appreciate the concern.”

He would have liked to keep chatting, but it didn’t seem wise to distract himself until he’d properly informed the rest of the task force about the AI lurking in the Siberian Omnium. Before Lena could go chasing tangents down rabbitholes he asked, “Would you happen to know which room I could find Agent Winston in? I must speak with him about a discovery I made during our mission.”

“Uh… sure,” Lena replied with unmasked confusion. She knocked on door directly across from her own. “Wakey wakey in there!”

He did not, unfortunately, respond as promptly as she had. There was a bang from behind the door, followed by shuffling and an angry snort before Winston finally opened the door, scratching at the hem of a pair of orange sweatpants that looked to be custom-made. Past him, a similar green pair appeared to have had a fatal encounter with an upended jar of peanut butter. “Hmmmm?” he asked drowsily.

It was abundantly clear that he was not a morning person like Lena was, so Zenyatta did his best to speak gently. “I would like to speak with you about an important discovery. Shall I give you time to wake first?”

Winston wiped a large hand over his face. “No, it’s alright. I hear you. Just… give me a minute. If you go get everyone up we can meet in my room in ten.” He hesitated then shut the door, an action followed in short suit by more banging. 

Zenyatta glanced mirthfully at Lena, finding himself thoroughly amused by their leader’s conduct. “Should we have waited?”

“He can’t wake up until he’s had breakfast,” she responded with a cheeky eye roll. “In all the years I’ve known him he’s never been able to form a coherent sentence ‘til he’s had a cuppa coffee and a banana! No wonder the poor fella was having trouble, running on nothing but peanut butter! But let’s go get everyone else up, yeah?”

Just like that she was on the other end of the hall, making Zenyatta wonder once again if his optics were functioning right. It would take a long time to get used to the way her chronal accelerator let her zip around so effortlessly. 

Between them it took little time to assemble the rest of the team. Most of them settled in Winston’s room but with all the equipment he’d brought there was no room for Reinhardt; he watched from the doorway and Zenyatta chose to keep him company. He liked the man, and didn’t want him to have to stand in the hall alone. 

It was a mystery where the clutter itself had come from, but Zenyatta supposed he might simply have become biased from traveling light for so long. Most of it seemed to be scientific equipment, so perhaps Winston had salvaged it when the Russian army rescued the survivors of the omnic attack on the bunker? He would ask later if he remembered, but for the moment there were far more important concerns. 

“Now that everyone’s awake, what was it you wanted to tell us?” Winston asked, and Zenyatta straightened his spinal column as the squad’s attention shifted to him.

“Until now, it was difficult to find time to summarize what we learned while we were recovering from the helicopter crash, so consider this a mission debrief,” he began, letting the words run long and smooth through his vocal box. It was odd to speak in such a clipped, businesslike manner. “As a brief preamble, are you all aware that we met a Bastion unit in the woods, one of the original models?”

A loud grumble right next to Zenyatta interrupted his thoughts. “I thought we wiped them all out decades ago. If only Balderich was around we could have one last go at it together!”

“This Bastion was friendly,” he corrected Reinhardt evenly, and left no further room for interruption. “It confirmed some suspicions I had already been harbouring about the situation at the omnium. Both of us felt the distinct presence of a god program-” he paused as a collective murmur rippled through the room- “but it seemed uninterested in hijacking our systems or controlling our minds. I believe it is concerned only with producing modern military-grade omnics to wage war against humanity.”

“Like the first crisis,” Angela murmured, sitting tense and compact against the far wall. She turned to Torbjörn. “How could such a thing have reawakened?”

“Hard to tell,” Torbjörn growled, his brow furrowed. “The bots themselves were my problem, not the god programs. We never did understand why they appeared in th’ first place. Ana always said it was the Omnica Corporation’s fault, that the AIs they’d created to oversee production started t’ run amok after the fraud was uncovered and th’ omniums got shut down. Wouldn’t be surprised. She always was a sharp one.”

Zenyatta had only heard the name Ana a few times from Genji, and he knew little about her. He would file it away in his growing list of questions for later, but for the time being, there was more he had to tell the team. “It is my belief that the augmented bastions we’ve been fighting are not themselves the enemy. That they are under the control of a god program lurking within the Siberian Omnium, and only by convincing that force to cease its onslaught will we be able to protect what little human habitation might remain in and around Krasnoyarsk.”

“Or better yet, we shut it down fer good,” Torbjörn added scathingly. “You can’t trust those things to play fair.”

“Perhaps,” Zenyatta admitted. “You’ve dealt with them for far longer than I have. What worries me is that we’re incapable of taking any action at all right now.”

“Incapable?” Reinhardt cried, sticking his head through the doorway. “My friends, only words and papers are stopping us from returning to battle! That is hardly a barrier!”

Angela crossed her arms. “But it is, Reinhardt. Apathy towards the law is why Overwatch activity was banned in the first place. You know that. We all know that.”

Winston nodded in agreement. “Dr. Ziegler is right. We’re not going anywhere without clearance from the United Nations. As great as it’d be to operate without restrictions, I think we’ve gotten ourselves in enough trouble already.”

Reinhardt frowned as he came under attack for his enthusiasm, but Zenyatta offered a hand on his shoulder- what he could reach of it, anyway. “We’re all frustrated at our situation,” he said. Then, glancing at the others, “Perhaps a little exaggeration is not out of place when its goal is to lighten the mood?”

Angela turned her gaze toward the window. “As long as it comes across as humour instead of an honest suggestion.” It was the first time Zenyatta had seen her standoffish with a squadmate; the sleeplessness must still have been plaguing her. Insomnia, perhaps? It wasn’t his place to ask, but he couldn’t fault her for the sudden irritability. They were all under heavy strain; the mission had failed, a decades-old threat had reawoken, and they could only sit helplessly as innocents died. It was not an ideal situation. 

Uneasy silence settled into the room and the adjoining hallway, but just as Zenyatta began to ponder how he could wave it away with words of encouragement, a uniformed soldier entered at the end of the hall and approached them stiffly. 

He spoke hesitantly and in basic English, unlike the first serviceman Zenyatta had listened to. “United Nations has found a suitable location for you. You will fly to Geneva in two hours, so pack your items. I am sorry for short notice, but United Nations is strict.”

“Good!” Lena exclaimed, hopping to her feet and dashing back to her own room. She chattered through the open door even as the others were still getting to their feet. “About time we got the ball rolling! The sooner the politics are taken care of, the sooner we’ll be back and fighting right alongside ya!”

The man flushed. “It was honor to host Overwatch. We hope you can return. I am instructed to tell you we have recovered your aircraft and we will escort you to Geneva. We will also return your weapons and send emissary.”

Zenyatta had brought no belongings other than his orbs, and he trusted they would be returned at the appropriate time. But even as he found himself ready to leave while the others still rushed to pack, he couldn’t help but feel as though he was being left behind.

-

The next few hours blurred by as though he was viewing them with his visual processors unfocused. Once the team had assembled their belongings they were guided out of their temporary dwellings and onto a hangar, where they met with Junior Sergeant Zaryanova. Her actions were still under scrutiny, she said, but the tribunal’s findings had been favourable thus far and they had elected to make use of her downtime by sending her to Geneva with Overwatch to vouch for them personally. It was a welcome tidbit of good news amongst the commotion, even if it might make his life more difficult later on.

They lifted off into sunny skies and low winds; Lena flew just as before, but they were accompanied by an escort of five jets to ensure they maintained course for their destination and didn’t vanish into the wilderness. 

The low vibrations of the aircraft brought Zenyatta steadily and inexorably back to the present. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been airborne, or even how long the flight from Moscow to Geneva was. 

As he assessed the situation he found that, instead of a pang of anxiety, a giddy thrill sparked in his chest at the thought of touching down. Yes, they would be farther from the people they had promised to protect, but Lena had been right; by arriving in Geneva they could finally begin dismantling the political barriers that had hampered them on their first try. And- he permitted himself a moment of selfish honesty- he was excited to be reunited with Genji. They’d have time to reconvene, to open up and take comfort in each others’ presence as they had always done.

Until then, he was happy to let himself doze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my friends are really great? another pal doodled mercy bc lets be real she is photogenic as fuck even when she's running on fumes [go look](http://doodaruzu.tumblr.com/post/149303829155/rl-quick-doodle-of-mercy-from-my-friends-fic)
> 
> if zenyatta's meditation doesn't sound very much like how it's traditionally understood, that's because i see the shambali as basing their beliefs on buddhism but also branching into their own religious understandings of the world around them, and possibly borrowing from other faiths as well


	10. Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team sent to Krasnoyarsk now arrives in Geneva as sanctions and sentences float ominously above them. Mercy has doubts about her work. Genji tests his teacher's patience by trying to climb out of a window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer- i took a ton of liberties with how the UN works in this chapter because it's 60 years in the future and a lot can change, especially when sentient robots happen. 
> 
> also there are a ton of references in here, some heavy-handed and some more subtle. it's a pretty self-indulgent chapter i apologize sgdhsfghjhgfd

A nudge roused Zenyatta from his dozing. He stretched, checking his pistons and recalibrating his optics before turning to see Winston standing next to him.

“Sorry to wake you,” he said, “but we just landed and there’s a United Nations escort waiting.”

The sun shone bright and clear through the windows, and it took Zenyatta just a little longer than usual to shake off his drowsiness. He could hear Lena from the pilot’s seat- _welcome to Geneva, loves, local time is 11:23am and it’s a balmy 19°, that’s about 66° in Fahrenheit_ \- and a loud grumble as Torbjörn woke from his own nap. But everybody else was already on their way out the door, so he wasted no time in joining them.

They had landed on a runway in what might have been another military base. It was hard for Zenyatta to tell. There were no barracks in sight, but plenty of uniformed soldiers stood guard nearby as the team found themselves guided towards a series of blue-and-white vans behind a chain-link gate at the end of the tarmac. He’d heard many times that the United Nations hadn’t always been this militaristic, that once they had engaged strictly in peacekeeping operations. But the existence of his kind had changed that, and since he’d been created at the end of the Omnic Crisis, it was all he’d ever known of them.

Not that they were always a force hell-bent on regulating omnic lives, he supposed, retreating into his mind as the gate was opened and the team headed for the vans. Before he left the Shambali he’d had many meetings with UN representatives, and some had gone well. In those days they had seemed fragmented, as though internal forces beyond his sight were grappling to instate their own opinions about how to “handle” omnics. On some occasions he’d met humans who truly understood and empathized with him, but on others, he had had to leave the premises and let the other monks handle the scorn leveled at them. The officials’ subtle derision, gilded with smooth voices and flamboyant analogues, had made him _burn_ inside. 

In time he had come to understand, and he no longer held their views against them; many of them had been appointed when an abrupt shift towards a more warlike and authoritarian attitude was all that stood between humanity and annihilation at the hands of immense omnic armies. Nevertheless, he’d always admired his kindred’s penchant for tact and limitless compassion. _Especially Mondatta,_ a ghost in his head murmured. _You’ll never be a fraction of what he was._

Zenyatta sighed to himself. At least he was experienced in catching the negative thoughts before they could settle around him like smog. 

He let himself return to reality and focused on following the soldiers’ directions to one of the vans at the front of the line, climbing inside and fastening his seatbelt as Angela settled in next to him. There was only room for two backseat occupants per vehicle, it seemed; admittedly, it was nice to have space to move his legs. 

As the van rumbled to life, Zenyatta turned his attention to the doctor next to him. The dark circles under her eyes were prominent as ever and her hair was dishevelled. 

“Did you manage to nap on the plane?” he asked gently. The driver began taking them down a series of winding boulevards, with the other vans and their occupants following close behind. 

The question roused her as though her mind had been in another time and place, and it took her a moment to respond. “Here and there, yes. It always seems easier to sleep when I’m not trying to.”

The van huffed as they bounced over a speed bump. She added, “I’m sorry for earlier. I didn’t mean to come across rudely.”

Confused, Zenyatta ran through his memory banks for a moment until he realized she was referring to her short temper with Reinhardt earlier that morning. He placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. “I understand, and I’m sure the others do as well. All of us have been pushed beyond our limits in the past few days. It is a pity humans cannot shut down on command as most omnics can, but I would pass the ability on to you were it possible.”

“Thank you,” the medic responded wryly. She leaned back against the seat, watching Geneva pass by through the window. “It’s nice to be back. I haven’t been home in many years; I wish I could visit Zurich and see how things have changed. I miss the work, you know. And I miss when it was not used to wage war.”

Zenyatta nodded. Of all Genji’s old friends in Overwatch, he had heard the most about Angela, about the long nights they’d both found themselves plagued by insomnia. Their talks of life, death, altruism, remorse. He knew, if only through his student’s words, her deep-seated sorrow for the harm that had eventually been wrought with her nanotechnology. “Do you regret where your life’s path took you?” he asked gently. 

She shrunk a little, and had Zenyatta known her better he might have offered a hug. “Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t,” she answered. “My work was only ever meant to help others. I never wanted it to cause harm. There were… factors I never considered.”

Before Zenyatta could ask exactly what she meant, the van had ground slowly to a halt in a gravel driveway. They exited and found themselves in a verdant park; nearby oaks and chestnuts reached into the blue sky, veiling the city streets beyond, while fields of rolling grass separated winding cobbled pathways. The rest of the Krasnoyarsk team- and Zarya- filed out with them, armed escorts on either side. 

Their arrival had interrupted the conversation, but as they walked Zenyatta resumed where they had left off. “I might not understand the intricacies of the moral dilemmas that come with your field, Dr. Ziegler, but I do know that your work has changed so many lives for the better that it would be a terrible shame for you to focus only on how others repurposed it for their own wishes.” 

She hesitated as though trying to avoid the topic. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or maybe she simply didn’t know him well enough yet to disclose how she felt; either way, he bowed his head and respected her desire to remain silent.

The drive itself was lined by meticulously trimmed shrubbery and gardens of red and white pansies, and led to a large Neoclassical structure- a hotel, perhaps- that Zenyatta supposed was to be their new lodging. It seemed awfully grand for what was essentially a prison; he could only hope that the previous occupants hadn’t been forcefully vacated to make room for them. While it was certainly an upgrade from their accommodations in the military camp outside Moscow, he had few cares in regards to the atmosphere so long as basic necessities were available. Though, the omnic admitted to himself, it was nice to be free of that horrible yellow wallpaper. 

Just as they began climbing the stairs to the building’s ample portico the wide doors opened. McCree stepped out, dipping his hat in greeting, followed by Genji and Reinhardt’s friend Brigitte. 

Zenyatta had barely the better part of a second to brace himself before he and Angela were tackled into a hug. “Master! Dr. Ziegler! We were worried sick! Why didn’t you call?”

Genji pulled back to evaluate their condition, and finally added, “You both look awful.”

Before Zenyatta had time to react, Angela took a step forward and pushed him fondly out of the way. “There’ll be time to debrief later. Look at yourself, Genji, you’re making a scene!”

Indeed, as Zenyatta peered over his shoulder he found the rest of the team- and most of their armed guard- was gawking. 

“Fine,” Genji sniffed, and still made a grab for Zenyatta’s hand as they headed inside. He just barely evaded it; as much as he’d have liked to indulge his student, it took no great insight to recognize that this wasn’t the best time or place for public displays of affection. 

The inside of the hotel was opulent, with red carpeted floors and two curved staircases leading to an upper level. A hallway between the stairs led to what appeared to be a kitchen, and between that and the door was a small living area furnished with potted plants, bookcases, and two loveseats. Directly to the left and right of the door there seemed to be additional lounges. 

“What is this place?” he wondered. Perhaps he’d been mistaken in calling it a hotel.

Genji opened his arms wide, replying in his native Japanese. “This is where we used to stay during extended meetings with the United Nations before Overwatch was shut down. We were always technically under their jurisdiction, but things were pretty lenient until the allegations of corruption. It was built by a famous architect in a very old style, and it’s just a five minute walk from the city’s main UN Office.”

That explained why it had been ready for their arrival so quickly, though it seemed a waste for it to have been left empty since Overwatch’s dissolution years earlier. Zenyatta hummed thoughtfully in response as they were assembled in the front hall, the escort lining up to face them.

One of the chaperones stepped forward, speaking in clipped, slightly accented English. “I’ve been instructed to tell you that this will be your guesthouse during your stay in Geneva, as is tradition. There is space for each of you to have your own private room, but no shenanigans will be tolerated. Basic supplies have been provided but you will have to maintain the premises on your own time and make your own meals. There will be an armed guard of at least ten in this facility at all times. You will be given tonight to settle in, and tomorrow morning you will be summoned to meet with the secretary-general and all available members of the assembly in order to discuss your organization’s future and the penalties you will all face for violating the Petras Act. Miss Zaryanova, I have been told you will be permitted to accompany them. Am I clear?”

The question was met with nods and murmurs of consideration, but nobody protested. The guard dispersed shortly thereafter. 

“First things first,” Winston said as he headed towards the nearest staircase, “let’s all get settled in. Why don’t we all pick a room to stay in and take a few hours to unwind? We can reassemble in the kitchen at five to cook up some supper and discuss the mission.”

Zenyatta lifted casually off the ground as he followed the others upstairs, Genji trailing close behind. “You should take the room next to mine,” he insisted, now in English. “It is the largest by a few inches. I checked.”

“You must have been quite bored waiting for our return,” Zenyatta chuckled, knowing that it was a blatant excuse but deciding to humour him. “I presume you’ve found every secret passage and made friends with all the dust bunnies?”

McCree chimed in from next to them as he headed back downstairs. “He’s probably discovered Narnia by now.”

Zenyatta cocked his head, unable to connect the dots in his mind even as the American had a good knee-slapping hoot at his expense. 

“Never mind him,” Genji snickered. “Why don’t you settle in, sensei? Maybe we can talk about the mission later.”

“That sounds agreeable,” Zenyatta responded, opening the door he’d been led to. He was well aware of Genji filing in behind him as he gave the room a cursory once-over: a twin-sized bed against the far wall, a single window next to it, a tiny desk and chair, a closet opposite them. Plain white-painted walls, for which he was immensely grateful.

With that out of the way, he turned to shut the door behind him and finally let go the constraints of public appearance. He took hold of his pupil’s forearms, equal parts gentle and urgent. “Are you well, Genji? Have you and the others encountered any difficulties while we’ve been gone? You haven’t gotten into any fights, have you?”

Genji pulled Zenyatta into another hug, this one longer, more intimate. “You think so little of me?” he chuckled. “I have been well, master. It’s only your own well-being that has concerned me. You all fell off the radar on the same day you left, and since Brigitte was taking care of Jesse, I only had my worries to keep me company.” After a short ten seconds he retreated slowly, as though loathe to reinstate the space between them. “But what matters is that you were all safe in the end. Will you tell the whole story when we meet for dinner?”

“I’d be happy to tell you now, if you wish,” Zenyatta offered. He had missed Genji sorely, and would have enjoyed more time in each other’s company, but he would wait if it suited the cyborg better.

“Ah, I do wish, but!” Genji exclaimed with that telltale hesitation that Zenyatta knew was embarrassment. “I have a prior engagement. I was playing tag with a group of local children yesterday evening and when they had to leave to meet their curfew, I promised I would meet them today at noon.”

Zenyatta crossed his arms, doing his best to appear stern and nonplussed. “Did our bodyguards know of this escapade?”

Genji puffed out his chest. “No.”

“You are impossible, Genji Shimada,” Zenyatta declared. Then, more softly, “Take someone with you this time, sweet sparrow. We would do well to avoid making a mockery of our hosts’ hospitality.”

Genji had been just about halfway out the window before Zenyatta’s words snagged him and held him still. Reluctantly he climbed back inside. “Of course, master.”

It was never that easy with Genji. “But?” 

There was a smirk behind that metal plating, and Zenyatta knew it. “But if they insist I stay inside, I will be back at this window in seconds.” 

“I suppose we will have to call it a compromise,” Zenyatta conceded. He opened the door and hovered back into the hallway. “I do wonder how it is that our compromises always seem to cater distinctly to your interests.”

Genji sidled down the stairs, his voice made of pure wicked glee as he responded. “Perhaps you grow soft, master.”

“We shall see about that tomorrow morning, provided there is time for a round or two of sparring,” Zenyatta purred. They had come to the point that his student could best him on occasion, but not without a hard-fought fight, one that might hopefully remind him to keep his pride in check.

After taking a moment to consider how they might find a suitable location he realized he’d been left behind and followed Genji downstairs. Even as he reached the landing, however, his pupil was bolting out the door like an excited puppy, with just a single soldier scrambling to keep up. No wonder, he thought as he checked his chronometer. It was just two minutes until midday, and in his experience children did not like to be kept waiting. 

Zenyatta hovered in place for a moment, wondering how he ought to spend his time. It would be best to leave his teammates from the mission to their well-earned rest, but what of those he hadn’t had a chance to properly meet yet? He wasn’t particularly energetic either, but if they proved mellow it might be a good time to get to know them better.

A low lilt from somewhere off to the right caught his attention. It came from the lounge past the doorway, and he had to focus his audio processors to hear it. _“Would you look at the time.”_

Maybe mellow was too much to ask for, Zenyatta reflected ruefully. He knew enough from Genji’s stories to recognize that it might be best to wait until another time to properly introduce himself to McCree. 

Instead the omnic found himself wandering into the kitchen, setting down with a soft clink on the linoleum tile. Splashes of bright colour dotted the otherwise muted gold and brown hues of the counters and walls: a cookie jar bedecked in stickers and gift wrap, a note on the dishwasher, and paper cranes strung up by the nearest set of windows all passed under his careful scrutiny. It might have been years since the guest house had proper inhabitants but it felt as though it had never been empty at all.

As Zenyatta pattered over to admire the cranes his attention was captured by the glossy flash of photos held to the refrigerator with a worldly array of magnets. Pictures always fascinated him; while the adage held that they went for a thousand words apiece, he could spend hours unwinding dozens of entire stories from a single image. 

He knelt to get a closer look. There was Angela near the top, her arms outstretched as she danced in a field of yellow flowers, a mirthful smile gracing her youthful features. Next to her Zenyatta spied Lena and Torbjörn riding on Reinhardt’s broad shoulders, the former gleeful and the latter glowering as though he had lost a dare. 

Further down was McCree, young and clean-shaven, leaning into the camera and pressing his hands together as though praying; in the background a man with a beanie seemed blissfully unaware of the _‘kick me’_ post-it-note on his posterior. To the left a warmly-dressed team of scientists assembled before a helicopter, their faces shining with optimism and glee. His attention was drawn back upwards as he noticed in one photo the signature curve of Genji’s faceplate. The young ninja sat stiffly in a patch of grass, mounds of birdseed in each hand and an entire flock of chickadees perched on him. 

Nearing the middle of the fridge Zenyatta found an idyllic scene of three strangers leaping into a pool. A woman on one side, bombastic and reckless, glossy black hair captured behind her in a flourish; a man on the other side, his handsome features caught between surprise and glee; a second man in the center, the frustrated slant of his brows wholly outshone by the carefree laugh captured on his lips. 

They must have been older members of Overwatch. Zenyatta couldn’t recognize them by appearance alone, but surely Genji would have pointed them out if they had answered the recall. The three would have been quite old by now, judging by the scrawled date in the corner of the picture; perhaps they were just enjoying a well-earned retirement. 

That seemed to be all the photos. Zenyatta turned his optics to the magnets, but his mind was already wandering elsewhere. The photographs were a bittersweet reminder of just how little he really knew about Overwatch. He had never sat down and asked Genji for a chronological tale, nor had he ever devoted so much as an evening to burrowing through a library or internet archive for details. 

Soft anxious wings fluttered at the corners of the his mind, whispering again that he was out of his league, he would only be a burden like this, he would never honor his mentor’s memory. But he knew better than to let the fear envelop him. Mondatta had been right, the worries wouldn’t simply vanish one day; he had to listen to them, feel them, understand that instead of burying them deep inside where they’d grow in the cracks of his subconscious he had to bring them out into the light and recognize that he was capable of managing them. 

If he worried that he knew too little, then the answer ought to be clear, Zenyatta thought. Learn more. Prepare himself. He vowed to ask as many questions as he could come dinnertime.

Feeling rather proud of how he handled the anxiety, he turned to leave the kitchen and was stopped in his tracks by the imposing figure of Junior Sergeant Zaryanova. 

“Hello, omnic,” she spat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you think genji is 100% serious all the time and doesn't act like a little shit anymore, ask him if the payload is stopped.


	11. Strain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The agents of Overwatch reassemble and regroup as the verdict of the United Nations hangs over their future. Zenyatta narrowly avoids being suplexed. Torbjörn needs to learn to chew. Genji is a good boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! i bet you thought this fic was dead!
> 
> school picked up and will probably do so again after winter holidays are over, but i've got no intention of abandoning this. just gonna be longer between updates.
> 
> feel free to go bother me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/vibidi_) or [tumblr](http://zendattas.tumblr.com/) though, sometimes i really need a slap on the ass to get rolling.

It was abundantly clear that Zarya was not happy to find him here. 

For every menacing step she took toward him he took a cautious step back, until she’d backed him into a corner. Made small by her shadow, he couldn’t help but be reminded of the beatings he and Mondatta had sometimes endured in their earlier years, before Nepal, before the Shambali. 

He’d rather hoped not to encounter that sort of pain again, but perhaps it could still be avoided. “Can I help you, Miss Zaryanova?” he asked, the static undertone in his voice betraying his discomfort.

“You have no right to speak my name,” Zarya snapped. She pressed the back of her forearm to the delicate cables on his neck and he curled his chin downward, trying to alleviate the cramping pain as she continued. “I will give you a chance to answer honestly, omnic. Why are you with Overwatch? There is no good reason for your kind to be here. Are you a spy?”

Zenyatta lifted a conciliatory hand, opening his palm in a calming gesture. “I would have to be a remarkably dedicated double agent to have spent so much time and energy infiltrating this organization, don’t you think?”

This seemed to shatter her train of thought. She scrunched her brows, tossed a strand of pink hair out of her eyes, glared into his optics as though they would reveal an answer to her if she just _concentrated_ enough. “Answer the question. What do you want from Overwatch?”

It seemed to him that her mind had started to stall like an engine on a cold morning. He had seen humans encounter such confusion before, especially when dealing with omnics. That a machine could perform independent acts of kindness was beyond them, but Zenyatta had learned long ago how to approach misconceptions born of ignorance. “I have reason to believe my experience could be of use here, but there is nothing I want from Overwatch.”

Zarya scowled and opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by heavy, hasty footsteps from the hallway. Reinhardt ducked through the archway into the kitchen and drew himself to his full height, glowering as he towered over the already-massive weightlifter. “I trust you are taking kindly to our mechanical friend, Aleksandra!”

“ _Da._ I had questions for it. That is all.” Zarya took a step away from Zenyatta and Reinhardt filled the void just as quickly, wrapping a protective arm around his shoulders. 

“The rest of your questions can wait,” Reinhardt advised sternly. “Zenyatta is still recovering from his first mission and he is very tired, isn’t that right?”

“Perhaps a little,” Zenyatta admitted, finally letting himself relax. He could have handled the situation himself, he thought, and then began to doubt himself.

Reinhardt’s intervention left Zarya on the retreat. She averted her gaze and her shoulders sagged, and all of a sudden Zenyatta realized just how hard Reinhardt’s rebuke had hit her. It had been difficult not to make assumptions about her, based on her size and manner of carriage, but her unexpected withdrawal reminded him that if he judged her as she judged him, he would never be able to connect with her. 

He chose to remain silent as she left in a hurry, and only realized when Reinhardt squeezed his shoulder that his fans had been whirring anxiously. 

“A warrior should know better than to see the world in black and white,” the crusader murmured. “I am sorry, my friend. The war has left many scars.”

Zenyatta nodded and concentrated on regaining his composure. “I understand. Her prejudice is born of fear, and in time I hope she’ll come to see that omnics themselves are not the threat.”

Reinhardt turned and made his way toward the refrigerator as he spoke. “I used to think that the Omnica Corporation should never have been allowed to construct the omniums, and we would all have been better off without. But then I would never have met you, Käfer.”

“I’m glad to have met you too,” Zenyatta returned, hissing steam as he flushed with embarrassed heat. Centering himself and focusing, he lifted off the ground and hovered over to Reinhardt. The knight had paused when he saw the photos, and a wistful smile passed over his face like an autumn breeze. 

“These were the glory days,” he said, motioning to the pictures. “There was no corruption, no Petras Act. Just honour in battle and family among us all. I miss it.”

“Will you tell me about it?” Zenyatta asked as they began to take stock of the supplies the United Nations agents had left for them. If he was being given an opportunity to make good on his promise to learn more of Overwatch’s history, then it only made sense to seize it. 

“Of course, but in return, you must help me prepare supper!” Reinhardt laughed. 

It was hours early, but big men had big appetites, Zenyatta supposed. As they set to planning a meal for the other agents, Reinhardt launched into tales of combat, of political intrigue, of the golden age he missed so dearly, and Zenyatta listened faithfully. 

-

In no time at all, Reinhardt and Zenyatta had made enough spaghetti, garlic bread, and garden salad to feed all the guest house’s occupants. They were just finishing when the telltale chime of spurs signalled McCree’s arrival.

“Howdy,” he said affably, and Zenyatta greeted him in turn, hoping he might be a little easier to get to know that midday had come and gone. 

“Ah! Jesse! Come and help us set out the cutlery,” Reinhardt requested. The cowboy sauntered over and reached into the cupboards with practiced ease that told Zenyatta he, like the others, had been here many times before. 

Before Zenyatta had a chance to make conversation, Lena zipped into the kitchen and sat herself on the counter beside him. “Wow, so that’s what smells so good! Need help?” she asked.

“I’ve got it, darlin’,” McCree responded, already carrying a stack of knit placemats to the dining table on the other side of the room. “Why don’tcha go get everyone and bring ‘em here?”

As quickly as Lena had hopped up onto the counter, she was gone, leaving a chipper “Aye aye!” in her wake. Zenyatta wondered if he would ever get used to her ability to be anywhere and everywhere at once.

A low chuckle from the table recaptured his attention. “Nightmare in the kitchen, that one,” McCree explained. “Best of intentions but she can be a real bull in a china shop.” As he returned for plates he added, “So, heard you’re one of the Shambali. Interestin’ fellas. Done a lot of good for the world.”

“They have,” Zenyatta agreed. He would rather have talked about something else. “I hope they will continue to do so. And you’re American, if I’m not mistaken.”

“That’s right. Land of the free, as they say,” McCree lilted. 

Zenyatta had heard as much from Genji- indeed, he’d heard plenty about McCree- but there was no sense in making assumptions about his character from the viewpoint of another. Instead he settled for small talk until Lena returned with the rest of their entourage in tow, though Genji was mysteriously missing, and Zenyatta suspected both he and his new friends had lost track of time.

The assembled agents all sat with a chorus of thank yous and the telltale clinking of metal and ceramic. Zenyatta hovered over and sat down between Angela and Reinhardt, taking his place last so that he could leave a healthy distance between him and Zarya. He was capable of fending for himself if necessary, but he wouldn’t want to resort to blows at the table, so it was best to err on the side of caution.

Once they had settled in and the others had taken some time to fill their bellies, Winston outlined his own account of the Krasnoyarsk mission, explaining how he and Reinhardt had fought long and hard to protect the unprepared soldiers but the bunker had eventually been overrun. They and just a handful of soldiers escaped. Zenyatta knew this, but still listened attentively, and more so when Lena recounted how she had helped the svyatogor pilots to drive off the bastions. Shortly thereafter Angela had come across them, having narrowly avoided the heavy fire as she slowed her descent to a glide after being sucked from the helicopter. 

From then on Angela continued the tale, explaining how they had left supplies in the mech and rushed back to the bunker only to find that the omnic army had already moved on. On making radio contact with Torbjörn they returned to the wilderness, where they ran into a very lost, very angry augmented bastion, and that was also when they reunited. And when the other surviving svyatogor pilot, Zarya’s friend, had been killed.

Uncomfortable silence took the table, and many eyes wandered in Zarya’s direction, but she remained silent and stoic, staring pointedly at her lap. After a moment, she stood and took her dish to the kitchen counter.

In an effort to stop the heavy emptiness among them from lasting any longer, Winston gestured to Zenyatta, then to Torbjörn, with an open hand. “Would you two mind filling in the rest of the details, so we’re all up to speed?”

Zenyatta peered at Torbjörn from the corner of his optic array. The mechanic’s mouth was full of garlic bread, and he nodded as if to say “go on.” 

It was difficult to believe that Torbjörn would have trusted him to speak on his behalf if they had been in this same position before their time together on the Front. A warm, heartening flicker spread through Zenyatta’s core systems as he addressed the assembly, fingers nervously tapping the empty space where his plate would have been before he caught them and rested his hands together. He recounted their efforts to fend off the augmented bastions and his own perilous brush with death, averted only by Torbjörn’s efforts. 

Though he’d intended to describe their meeting with the friendly Bastion, Zenyatta was hit with the sudden memory of the augmented ones, their cold and mindless violence, their refusal to communicate. At length, he repeated his fears about a god program that could be lurking within the Siberian Omnium. It was met with a long whistle from McCree and nervous attentiveness from Brigitte, and he made a mental note to repeat the information to Genji later. 

The rest had already been made aware of the potential threat, and in short time the informal debriefing broke into small fragments of conversation. Though Zenyatta would normally have been eager to stay and converse, Reinhardt’s earlier words rang true: he was exhausted, and it seemed wiser to take tonight to sleep and renew his efforts tomorrow. 

Out of force of habit he began collecting the plates from around the table, earning a quiet chorus of thank yous, before heading to the sink. Once the dishes were washed, he could rest.

Zenyatta had only just begun filling the sink with hot water when a warm, synthetic hand rested atop his own and held it delicately in place.

“Didn’t hear me coming?” There was a smile behind Genji’s voice, and probably behind his mask, too. “Let yourself rest, master. I look forward to hearing your story tomorrow.” 

Genji gently nudged his hand off of the plate and he let go, watching pensively as it slid back into the soapy water. Yes, he supposed, if he was so unaware of his surroundings, then it might be best to retire early. Though Genji had won many a battle with the element of surprise, it had never been particularly effective amongst the sharp-witted Shambali monks. He’d learned quickly that whenever he did manage to sneak up on Zenyatta, there was usually something troubling his mentor, and he had become _very_ good- frustratingly so- at pointing out these moments of distraction. 

Genji pressed further, squeezing his hand in a moment of swift, stolen intimacy. “Tomorrow.”

The promise was enough to convince Zenyatta. He brushed back against Genji’s hand then withdrew with a nod and left the room. His processors were too preoccupied with exhaustion and worry for him to remember to wish the others goodnight.

Fear and regret kept him company on the short walk back up to his room, but Zenyatta distanced himself from them, knowing they were a just a function of a tired and anxious imagination. Many years ago he had learned to replace the worrying thoughts with positive ones, to substitute the razor-winged butterflies in his mind for vibrant blue streaks of inspiration. 

Mondatta had taught him that, and now he had to rely on himself to be able to do it alone. As Zenyatta lay down, the worries faded, replaced by memories of candles and bright winter mornings.

-

It had been one month, eight days, and seventeen hours since they fled Vietnam.

During their swift and unexpected flight they had been jostled in dozens of overcrowded buses, and when news of the attack hit they had been thrown off, so they had walked until their pistons ached and throbbed. 

Everywhere they went they were met with fear and distrust. _Omnics,_ the humans whispered. _Like the ones that invaded Hanoi._

Children would be brought swiftly inside. Shutters would be closed. Zenyatta had long since lost count of how many times they had been driven from rural towns with venomous threats, even outright violence. No matter where they went it had been the same treatment, so eventually, they had left civilization altogether, headed west towards one of the few places human settlement was still sparse.

The barren slopes of the Himalayas were hardly a comfort, however. What difference did it make, Zenyatta wondered, whether they died at the hands of an angry mob or withered away in the elements? It was the same fate in the end, and ultimately, humans were the cause either way. 

“Zenyatta. Look.”

The request pulled him from his dark thoughts. He shielded his optics from the raw summer sunlight as he crested a steep, rocky ridge to stand with Mondatta and look down on the valley below.

A band of dainty goral grazed around an ages-old stone structure. The white patches on their necks stood out against the thick mosses and lichens covering the walls, and as one caught sight of the distant omnics’ approach they all turned to watch warily.

“They’re beautiful,” Mondatta murmured.

“We could sleep in there,” Zenyatta suggested simultaneously.

They eyed each other at length. Mondatta was the first to let a chuckle escape, and Zenyatta followed shortly. Perhaps the wisdom of his comment was lacking, but a little pragmatism wasn’t out of place when they had spent so long looking for somewhere to rest and recuperate.

Mondatta turned fully to face his companion and tipped his head to one side. “What do you suggest we do, little dove?”

Ah, so he’d taken the opportunity to turn this into a lesson. Zenyatta let a long, pointed puff of air from his fans as he watched the goral. 

Gentle wind buffeted the dry grasses around the band. An adolescent male shook his scruffy mane and began grazing again. A young calf peered out from behind its mother’s flank, nose wiggling and ears swivelling curiously. 

“I suppose it won’t kill us to stay here and watch until they move on,” Zenyatta admitted. “And then we can take shelter inside.”

“Then that will be our plan.” Mondatta lifted his chin and turned his attention back to the band, but not entirely, Zenyatta noticed. The flickering of his friend’s optics told him that he, too, was still very much the object of his attention.

He couldn’t help but feel as though he had passed some sort of test.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Käfer can mean both a Volkswagen Beetle and an actual beetle and may or may not be a double entendre.
> 
> the reflections comic kinda mucked up a few of this fic's canons but i'll find ways to work around them hopefully probably maybe


End file.
